为何人类拥有基因如此少量.docVIP

為何人類擁有的基因如此少量Why Do Humans Have So Few Genes 伊莉莎白?潘尼西ELIZABETH PENNISI） 　　1990年代後期，當生物學家正要解開人類基因組的序列時，他們猜測構成我們DNA的三十億組鹼基對裡的基因究竟有多少猜測接近。大約十多年前，都認為，們能夠存活，大約十萬個基因來數以萬計的細胞。然而，是我們只有二萬五千個基因這個數量約和一種叫做擬南芥的小花差不多，秀麗隱桿線蟲也。 When leading biologists were unraveling the sequence of the human genome in the late 1990s, they ran a pool on the number of genes contained in the 3 billion base pairs that make up our DNA. Few bets came close. The conventional wisdom a decade or so ago was that we need about 100,000 genes to carry out the myriad cellular processes that keep us functioning. But it turns out that we have only about 25,000 genes—about the same number as a tiny flowering plant called Arabidopsis and barely more than the worm Caenorhabditis elegans. 　　這個出人意料的結果強了基因學家形成的一項共識：和其他哺乳類動物的基因組，遠比有彈性複雜多了。「單一基因單一蛋白質」的概念早已過時；如今，我們知有多基因能夠製造不只一個蛋白質。調節蛋白質、RNA、非編碼DNA或甚至是基因組本身的化學和結構性改變，控了基因表現方式。理解這些基本元素是如何共同作用並排基因表現，是生物學家今面臨的重大挑戰之一。 That big surprise reinforced a growing realization among geneticists: Our genomes and those of other mammals are far more flexible and complicated than they once seemed. The old notion of one gene/one protein has gone by the board: It is now clear that many genes can make more than one protein. Regulatory proteins, RNA, noncoding bits of DNA, even chemical and structural alterations　of the genome itself control how, where, and when genes are expressed. Figuring out how all these elements work together to choreograph gene expression is one of the central challenges facing biologists.　 　　過去這幾年，人們清楚認識到一種叫做選擇性剪接的現象，人類基因組能夠如此少量的基因造出複雜的原因。人類基因同時包含了編碼DNA外顯子和非編碼DNA。在某些基因裡，外顯子不同的組合在時變得活躍，而每一種組合會生產出不同的蛋白質。選擇性剪接長以來被為一種在轉錄過程中的特殊中斷，但研究人員已經推論它也會發生在我們一半的基因之中，另幾乎在我們所有的基因之中。這個發現了很長一段時間解釋如此少量的基因是如何能夠製造成千上萬個不同的蛋白質。然而，關於轉錄器是如何在特定時間讀取決定基因依然是一個謎。 In the past few years, it has become clear that a phenomenon called alternative splicing is one reason human genomes can produce such complexity with so few genes. Human genes contain both coding DNA—exons—and noncoding DNA. In some genes, dif