Edward Rubin and Len Pennacchio of the Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, California, and colleagues figured out that some of this conserved DNA helps regulate genes, sometimes from afar, by testing it for function in transgenic mouse embryos. Studies by the group and others suggested that noncoding regions were littered with much more regulatory DNA than expected.
Read the rest of the story, “Shining a Light on the Genome’s ‘Dark Matter’,” in the Dec. 17 issue of Science. (Note: Free registration may be required to access the article.)