Exploring the Dark Matter of the Genome

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A diagram of Drosophilas centromeric heterochromatin which extends toward the center of the chromosomes from the gene-rich euchromatin regions (black). Sequenced regions of the heterochromatin are shown in blue. The gray regions are unsequenced seas  ...
A diagram of Drosophila's centromeric heterochromatin, which extends toward the center of the chromosomes from the gene-rich euchromatin regions (black). Sequenced regions of the heterochromatin are shown in blue. The gray regions are unsequenced "seas" of short repeats. Credit: Berkeley Lab

Not so long ago, the difficult-to-sequence, highly repetitive, gene-poor DNA found in regions of chromosomes known as heterochromatin was called "junk." Like dark matter in the universe, the true nature of heterochromatin was unknown.


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All News summaries for June 15, 2007