Twenty years
- Department of Chemistry, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8107, USA
- Corresponding author: sidney.altman{at}yale.edu
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
The most significant event of the past 20 years in molecular biology is the discovery of DNA sequences that are transcribed into RNAs that do not code for proteins. This phenomenon, originally found in C. elegans, has been extended to many organisms, including H. sapiens, and culminates to date in the further description of lnc RNAs (long non-coding RNAs). lnc RNAs are extremely long (>200 nts) and are transcribed from many parts of a genome, both from the Watson and Crick strands, and in humans, cover so many parts of the genome that the term “junk” DNA is rendered obsolete and incorrect. The future of RNA, for at least the next 10 years, is a most promising area of research that was founded by these recent discoveries.
The functions of the now partly characterized populations of these molecules are apparent when they determine phenotypes as the result of …
