Länk - Våra gener mycket rörigare än vi trott

The ENCODE consortium’s major findings include the discovery that the majority of DNA in the human genome is transcribed into functional molecules, called RNA, and that these transcripts extensively overlap one another. This broad pattern of transcription challenges the long-standing view that the human genome consists of a relatively small set of discrete genes, along with a vast amount of so-called junk DNA that is not biologically active.

The new data indicate the genome contains very little unused sequences and, in fact, is a complex, interwoven network. In this network, genes are just one of many types of DNA sequences that have a functional impact. “Our perspective of transcription and genes may have to evolve,” the researchers state in their Nature paper, noting the network model of the genome “poses some interesting mechanistic questions” that have yet to be answered.

actually if I remember correctly, there are 30,000 known genes which produce about 100,000 proteins [a little more than 3 per gene] which span a much larger amount of DNA that actually codes for proteins. genes have been known to code for multiple proteins since the Human genome project was completed. It has also been known that certain non-coding regions of DNA are not useless but in fact code for things like ribozymes etc. The article also talks about non-coding regions acting as a source for new structures. that is to say that the non-coding regions mutate and are selected for or against over time to form new proteins/enzymes etc.