According to Bin Tian, PhD, assistant professor of Biochemistry/Molecular Biology, emerging research in the field of genetics is revealing that the human genome contains 20,000 to 25,000 genes, which is not much different from lower species.

However, human genes generate more variants than those in lower species by alternative processing of precursor-mRNAs - the strands of ribonucleic acids that are synthesized from a DNA template in the nucleus of a cell. When precursor-mRNAs mature into what is called mRNA, they are then ready to leave the cell nucleus to direct the synthesis of their specific protein.

Part of the maturation involves the removal of certain pieces of the precursor-mRNA strands called introns, a process called splicing, as well as modifications to the front and back ends of the strands, which are called 5' and 3' respectively. Dr Tian and his lab have been studying the different variations that occur on the back end, the 3', and have discovered that more than half of the human genes have variations of the end segment.

Dr Tian's group's latest findings, reported this week in Genome Research, a leading genetics journal, reveal that many of the alternative 3' ends are also coupled with alternative splicing, a discovery that adds another level of complexity to the human mRNA pool in the cell. Using bioinformatics, the research team has elucidated this mechanism, providing new insights into the functional dynamics and evolution of the human genome.

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