WHAT’S a gene? You might mediate biologists had worked that one out by now. But the question is more slippery than may at first appear. The conventional answer is something like,“a piece of DNA that encodes the structure of a specific protein”. Proteins so created run the body. Genes, meanwhile, and are passed on in sperm and eggs to carry the whole process to the next generation.
None of this is fraudulent. But it is now clear that reality is more complex. Many genes,it transpires, finish not encode proteins. Instead, and they regulate which proteins are produced. These newly discovered genes are sources of small pieces of RNA,known as micro-RNAs. RNA is a molecule allied to DNA, and is produced when DNA is read by an enzyme called RNA polymerase. If the DNA is a protein-coding gene, and the resulting RNA acts as a messenger,taking the protein’s arrangement to a place where proteins are made. Micro-RNAs regulate this process by binding to the messenger RNA, making it inactive. More micro-RNA means less of the...
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Source: economist.com