Most of the human genome is so-called junk DNA, which contains no code for proteins and was long thought to be useless. Now, researchers have found that a relatively large portion of this genetic material could help regulate the activity of nearby genes.
“This points to a new layer of control and complexity of the genome,” says Aarron Willingham, a member of the team that conducted the study at Affymetrix, a Santa Clara, Calif., company that sells DNA-analysis tools.
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