Genome as a multipurpose structure built by evolution

Michel Morange (1, 2)

1 Centre Cavaillès
2 La République des savoirs : Lettres, Sciences, Philosophie

The publication in 2012 of the results of the ENCODE program generated an acrimonious debate about the role of junk DNA. This debate is a symptom of the difficulties of dovetailing functional and evolutionary descriptions of genomes. My argument is that extant genomes are the result of a progressive evolutionary construction. To the basic function – to give rise to RNA and proteins – have been successively added other functions – regulation by microRNA and epigenetic marks, for instance. This process of complexification was not a regular one, but the result of a complex evolutionary history, different for the different genomes.

Mots clés: Evolutionary history; Genome; Junk DNA; MicroRNAs; Sequences; ENCODE

Domaines: Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences

Michel Morange. Genome as a multipurpose structure built by evolution. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 2014. ⟨hal-01480552⟩