"Uncovering One Million New Components in the Human Genome"
Originally Published 1 year ago — by Medical Xpress
Researchers at the University of Toronto's Donnelly Center for Cellular and Biomolecular Research have discovered nearly one million new exons in the human genome using a method called exon trapping. These exons, which are stretches of DNA expressed in mature RNA, were found to be mainly due to random mutation and are unlikely to play a significant role in human biology. The findings challenge assumptions about the accurate removal of non-protein-coding intron regions and could potentially impact our understanding of genetic diseases and the development of tools for predicting splice sites and aberrant splicing.