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RNA-targeting CRISPR reveals that hundreds of noncoding RNAs are essential—not 'junk'

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2024-11-29 17:30:07

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

Genes contain instructions for making proteins, and a central dogma of biology is that this information flows from DNA to RNA to proteins. But only two percent of the human genome actually encodes proteins; the function of the remaining 98% remains largely unknown.

One pressing problem in human genetics is to understand what these regions of the genome do—if anything at all. Historically, some have even referred to these regions as "junk."

Now, a study in Cell finds that some noncoding RNAs are not, in fact, junk—they are functional and play an important role in our cells, including in cancer and human development.

Using CRISPR technology that targets RNA instead of DNA, researchers at New York University and the New York Genome Center searched across the genome and found nearly 800 noncoding RNAs important for the function of diverse human cells from different tissues.

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