G'day WK.
Interesting quote from Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory:
The prevailing wisdom in the field of molecular evolution was that new genes could only evolve from duplicated or rearranged versions of preexisting genes. It seemed highly unlikely that evolutionary processes could produce a functional protein-coding gene from what was once inactive DNA.
No wonder I was having so much trouble getting a straight answer on my "Adding Information to the Genome" thread.
So these new genes are thought to have evolved from junk DNA (though I can't understand why it's termed "junk DNA" when similar sequences are found inactive in other primates. You'd think they would differentiate between junk and an inactive gene).
In fact, this doesn't make sense. Why do they believe the genes originated from junk DNA, rather than from "rearrangements of existing genes"? The fact that the sequence doesn't code in primates doesn't mean it's not an existing gene, does it?
Highly frustrating that they don't know what these genes code for, other than the heightened activity of one in cases of leukemia.
"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin
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