On Causal Roles and Selected Effects: Our Genome is Mostly Junk

Overview

Journal BMC Biol

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialty Biology

Date 2017 Dec 7

PMID 29207982

Citations 14

Authors

W Ford Doolittle

Tyler D P Brunet

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The idea that much of our genome is irrelevant to fitness-is not the product of positive natural selection at the organismal level-remains viable. Claims to the contrary, and specifically that the notion of "junk DNA" should be abandoned, are based on conflating meanings of the word "function". Recent estimates suggest that perhaps 90% of our DNA, though biochemically active, does not contribute to fitness in any sequence-dependent way, and possibly in no way at all. Comparisons to vertebrates with much larger and smaller genomes (the lungfish and the pufferfish) strongly align with such a conclusion, as they have done for the last half-century.

Citing Articles

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