Researchers are investigating the role of non-coding DNA, or junk DNA, in regulating astrocytes, brain cells involved in ...

The puzzle seems impossible: take a three-billion-letter code and predict what happens if you swap a single letter. The code we’re talking about—the human genome—stores most of its instructions in ...

Researchers have revealed that so-called “junk DNA” contains powerful switches that help control brain cells linked to Alzheimer’s disease. By experimentally testing nearly 1,000 DNA switches in human ...

Scientists mapped hidden DNA switches in brain support cells to understand how gene control may influence Alzheimer’s disease ...

Imagine the human genome as a string stretching out for the length of a football field, with all the genes that encode proteins clustered at the end near your feet. Take two big steps forward; all the ...

Noncoding elements in the genome, such as enhancers, silencers, and insulators, play important roles in gene expression and thus cellular behavior. Therefore, these elements may be of particular ...

The non-coding genome, once dismissed as "junk DNA", is now recognized as a fundamental regulator of gene expression and a key player in understanding complex diseases. Following the landmark ...

Despite progress in defining functional elements of noncoding DNA, it is still not fully understood. UCLA researchers, using an experiment that elucidated the function of tens of thousands of ...

Scientists have been alert to genetic drivers of cancer that are embedded in the transcriptome, which consists of DNA’s coding regions. Beyond the transcriptome, in the wider genome, lurk additional ...

New research indicates faults in repairing DNA breaks that are caused by oxidative stress in the noncoding parts of the genome are directly involved in the development of neurological diseases. The ...