Do you think that the complex combinatorial effects on gene regulation

1)Do you think that the complex combinatorial effects on gene regulation exerted by many miRNAs may have anything to do with natural selection and evolution?

Pastenak thinks this might explain the development of homologous organs in the fish and humans? Can this be explained primarily by differences in the miRNA target sites in the 3′UTRs of key developmental genes (Plasterk, 2006).   What do you think?

 

Plasterk, R. H. (2006). Micro RNAs in animal development. Cell, 124(5), 877-881.

 

 

2)Nice Post! . Splicing can increase the number and diversity of genes but during splicing gene casuing mutaitons may also occur.

How can we determine if the disease is caused by splicing errors in patients?

López-Bigas and colleagues argue that splicing alterations is an important mechanism of disease-causing mutations (López-Bigas et al., 2005). Mutations routinely assumed to be missense, nonsense or even silent could actually be causing disease by affecting the splicing pattern of the genes (López-Bigas et al., 2005). They suggest that failure to recognize this fact, could confound the understanding of the molecular basis of disease, and could lead to a mis-assessment of the severity of disease-causing mutations (López-Bigas et al., 2005).

 

López-Bigas, N., Audit, B., Ouzounis, C., Parra, G., & Guigó, R. (2005). Are splicing mutations the most frequent cause of hereditary disease?. FEBS letters, 579(9), 1900-1903.

 

3)Sarah,  Good Post! Nice post! Do you think that in addition to creating diversity, the rate of disease causing  mutations might also increase with gene splicing. López-Bigas and colleagues argue that splicing alterations is an important mechanism of disease-causing mutations (López-Bigas et al., 2005). Mutations routinely assumed to be missense, nonsense or even silent could actually be causing disease by affecting the splicing pattern of the genes (López-Bigas et al., 2005). They suggest that failure to recognize this fact, could confound the understanding of the molecular basis of disease, and could lead to a mis-assessment of the severity of disease-causing mutations (López-Bigas et al., 2005).

 

López-Bigas, N., Audit, B., Ouzounis, C., Parra, G., & Guigó, R. (2005). Are splicing mutations the most frequent cause of hereditary disease?. FEBS letters, 579(9), 1900-1903.