Are Genes Turned Off Or Just ‘Whispering’?
Mar 31st, 2008 by Axel
Of the almost 25,000 human genes science that have been identified, half are believed to be silent at any particular time and activated only when needed.
Perhaps not, says Andre Ptitsyn, of the Center for Bioinfomatics at Colorado State University. He says he has discovered that current tools cannot measure extraordinarily low levels of gene expression signals so genes may not be turned off, but instead have undetected functioning.
“Genes that we have believed to be silent are actually whispering,” said Ptitsyn, who a applied a common physics principle to find oscillating patterns of gene expression in genes previously thought to be shut off.
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