Read more »Mattick, J.S. (2023) RNA out of the mist. TRENDS in Genetics 39:187-207. [doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2022.11.001,/p>
RNA has long been regarded primarily as the intermediate between genes and proteins. It was a surprise then to discover that eukaryotic genes are mosaics of mRNA sequences interrupted by large tracts of transcribed but untranslated sequences, and that multicellular organisms also express many long ‘intergenic’ and antisense noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs). The identification of small RNAs that regulate mRNA translation and half-life did not disturb the prevailing view that animals and plant genomes are full of evolutionary debris and that their development is mainly supervised by transcription factors. Gathering evidence to the contrary involved addressing the low conservation, expression, and genetic visibility of lncRNAs, demonstrating their cell-specific roles in cell and developmental biology, and their association with chromatin-modifying complexes and phase-separated domains. The emerging picture is that most lncRNAs are the products of genetic loci termed ‘enhancers’, which marshal generic effector proteins to their sites of action to control cell fate decisions during development.
John Mattick's new dog-ass plot (with no dog)
John Mattick is famous for arguing that there's a correlation between genome size and complexity; notably in a 2004 Scientific American article (Mattick, 2004) [Genome Size, Complexity, and the C-Value Paradox ]. That's the article that has the famous Dog-Ass Plot (left) with humans representing the epitome of complexity and genome size. He claims that this correlation is evidence that most of the genomes of complex animals must have a function. He repeats this claim in a recent paper (see below).
