Analysis of 29 mammals reveals genomic ‘dark matter’
An international team of researchers has discovered the vast majority of the so-called “dark matter” in the human genome, by means of a sweeping comparison of 29 mammalian genomes. The team, led by scientists from the Broad Institute and MIT, has pinpointed the parts of the human genome that control when and where genes are turned on. This map is a critical step in interpreting the thousands of genetic changes that have been linked to human disease. The findings appeared online Oct. 12 in the journal Nature.Early comparisons of the human and mouse genomes led to the surprising discovery that the regulatory information that controls genes dwarfs the information in the genes themselves. But these studies were indirect: They could infer the existence of these regulatory sequences, but could find only a small fraction of them. These mysterious sequences have been referred to as the “dark matter” of the genome,...