Genetik - Blog Posts

Seriously, genetics is weird.

I was reading one paper on long noncoding RNAs and there's this one part that just really stood out to me.

So to catch everyone up, genetic data is stored as DNA. Then parts of it go through a process called transcription to build a strand of RNA. Certain RNAs get translated into proteins, but there are noncoding RNAs that don't make proteins but instead do a secret second thing (and I mean secret cause there are tons of ncRNAs that no one knows what they do). long noncoding RNAs are just noticeably longer than average.

Anyway, one lncRNA mentioned in the paper is called WINCR1. When the researchers managed to block it from being used, they noted that cells lost the ability to divide and there was one particular gene GADD45B, which is responsible for triggering apoptosis, was more common in the cells.

So my guess is one of WINCR1's jobs is to just confirm to the self-destruct system that the DNA isn't broken. Like, it being transcribed essentially tells the cell that that part of the DNA is still working and it can then go and turn off the kill switch.

So I guess cells are just designed to kill themselves as their default setting and WINCR1 is the drinking bird pressing the Y key to tell the system to not just blow up.

this might be a stupid question, but if theres a protein that multiple organisms need, wouldn't the a t g c genetic code for it be the same for different species? or at least closely related species? so theoretically some prompts/sequences should have multiple fitting organisms or closest fitting organisms

(i know it isn't this simple, but im wondering what the exact reason it doesn't work like that is, or what im missing)

not a stupid question, i'll try to answer it to the best of my understanding, but if anyone has anything to add, please do.

put shortly: you're right! if multiple organisms need a certain protein, the code in their DNA is generally the same in that region.

from a genetics perspective, all organisms are actually extremely similar. i'm sure you've heard that we humans share more than half our genetic information with bananas and such.

this is just a factor of how evolution works. every so often, a mutation occurs in an organism's genome, which has a chance to increase the fitness of that organism, which allows it to have more offspring, which changes the mix of alleles in the population. and this is how we get different species of things.

but, because we all share a common ancestor from a long, long, long, long time ago, we do maintain some similarities, especially in regions that code for things essential to life.

those regions where things are *different* is where we're able to tell one species from another, differentiating moths from trees and such. but, overall, all living organisms have a whole lot in common.

you know what? no! *sanger sequences you and aligns you with a sequence of saxifraga rosacea no matter how many gaps i have to add between singular bases*

String identified: t g c g a a g. a t t a . t t t c g c g ' t . t. t c g c . a at c tt a a . t t . c a . t' at t t at t a a a . a ' t g t . at a c .

Closest match: Saxifraga rosaceawait how did you do that. what the fuck