'De novo' genes may have paved the way for humans' big brains.
Scientists once considered much of the human genome"junk" because large stretches of its genetic code don't give rise to any proteins, the complex molecules tasked with keeping cells running. However, it's since been discovered that this so-called junk DNA plays important roles in cells, and in a new study, researchers report that humans may actually have junk DNA to thank for our exceptionally big brains.
The findings suggest that such genes"may have a role in brain development and may have been a driver of cognition during the evolution of humans," Erich Bornberg-Bauer , an evolutionary biophysicist at the University of Münster in Germany who was not involved in the research, told Science magazine . Related: More than 150 'made-from-scratch' genes are in the human genome. 2 are totally unique to us.
By comparing the genomes of humans, chimpanzees and rhesus macaques , a more distant primate relative of ours, the authors pinpointed 74 examples of junk DNA transforming into protein-coding DNA, Ars Technica reported . A key step in this transformation was the junk DNA picking up mutations that allowed its RNA to exit the nucleus, they confirmed. —What fueled humans' big brains? Controversial paper proposes new hypothesis.
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