Further to the junk DNA guy not doing “politeness” any more when defending his challenged view that most DNA is junk, here is some RNA for him to get started on. This just in:
Regulation of metabolism by long, non-coding RNAs
… The regulation of metabolism and glucose homeostasis is orchestrated and fine-tuned by a complex interplay of tissues/organs. Currently, we are faced with an unprecedented rise of obesity in the civilized world and the concurrent increase in obesity-associated diseases such as insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D). Key to the understanding of whole-body metabolism are the pleiotropic effects of the anabolic master regulator insulin which simultaneously controls peripheral as well as central-nervous system-related aspects of metabolism (Kahn et al., 2006). Resistance toward the effects of insulin constitutes a key step in the development of metabolic disease. The exciting observation that insulin and insulin-like growth factor (IGF) 1 signaling also triggers distinct changes in lncRNA expression [e.g., of the lncRNA CRNDE (Ellis et al., 2013)] points to the fact that lncRNAs may also be implicated in the metabolic effects of insulin and the development of insulin resistance. Thus, a strong interest lies within the identification of lncRNA-mediated mechanisms governing energy and glucose homeostasis at the cell-intrinsic, organ and whole-body level. …
Non-paywalled and gets better. So don’t send non-coding RNA out with the recycling.
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Nice Find! 🙂
Speaking of genetic material, how can ID make sense of this article here?
http://www.foxnews.com/health/.....icial-dna/
Interesting find, VunderGuy.
the scientists said they created two additions to the normal genetic code, and then prompted bacteria to incorporate these pieces of man-made DNA with few ill effects.
So they intelligently designed additions to the genetic code and incorporated them? Certainly the potential for this to aid in treating diseases and expanding the boundaries of genomic medicine is there.
Vunder, here is the entire article:
This is all pretty much pie in the sky speculation. The supposed ‘expanded genetic code’ was not mapped to the production of amino acids for proteins, and thus their claim that it represents an expansion of the genetic code is ‘not even wrong’. Moreover, the speculation that this could lead to the production of ‘custom-built proteins as novel drugs, vaccines and antibiotics’ is nothing but pure fantasy! Even using the existing code, much less a foreign code, extreme effort goes into finding proteins that are not even as good as those already found in life:
And as pointed out yesterday, the first Genetic code had to be at least as complex as to current one since ‘Shannon channel capacity’ prohibits the changing of a code once it is in place:
Yet, the genetic code, despite its inability to evolve more complexity once it is in place, is found to be optimal:
Even Dawkins agrees that it is impossible to change a code once it is in place
As an aside, alternative splicing codes are found to be ‘species specific’, which, since changing of a code once it is in place is ‘catastrophic’, means humans and chimps have had two different origins for their ‘species specific’ alternative splicing code:
VG:
Here’s this from a Science Daily blurb:
But this work was conducted in the simplified milieu of a test tube. “These unnatural base pairs have worked beautifully in vitro, but the big challenge has been to get them working in the much more complex environment of a living cell,” said Denis A. Malyshev, a member of the Romesberg laboratory who was lead author of the new report.
. . . .
The greatest hurdle may be reassuring to those who fear the uncontrolled release of a new life form: the molecular building blocks for d5SICS and dNaM are not naturally in cells. Thus, to get the E. coli to replicate the DNA containing these unnatural bases, the researchers had to supply the molecular building blocks artificially, by adding them to the fluid solution outside the cell. Then, to get the building blocks, known as nucleoside triphosphates, into the cells, they had to find special triphosphate transporter molecules that would do the job.
What they did demonstrates that intelligent agents can cause living organisms to act in ways that are foreign to their nature.
I would also add: what does this say about OOL? Not only did the needed molecules need to be there, but special “triphospate transporter molecules” had to be place in the cell membrane. How, exactly, did “random forces” bring all of this about to form the FIRST bacteria? Heaven only knows.