Everything in the medical gadgets world is undergoing significant changes and transformation whether we take the example of the new Implanon or the Rheo Knee. Now, it’s the turn of DNA.



The researchers claim that they have found a second code in DNA in addition to the genetic code. Eran Segal of the Weizmann Institute in Israel and Jonathan Widom of Northwestern University in Illinois and their colleagues describe the new code in the current issue of Nature.



The genetic code specifies all the proteins that a cell makes. The second code, superimposed on the first, sets the placement of the nucleosomes, miniature protein spools around which the DNA is looped. The spools both protect and control access to the DNA itself.



What the researchers claim, if confirmed, could open new insights into the higher order control of the genes, like the critical but still mysterious process by which each type of human cell is allowed to activate the genes it needs but cannot access the genes used by other types of cell.



Via: NYTimes