The genome has a guardian: scientists find the complex that keeps 'jumping genes' in their place

Nearly half of human DNA is made of 'jumping genes' — stretches that can copy themselves and land elsewhere, sometimes scrambling the instructions around them. At Penn State, a team led by Shardul Kulkarni asked what keeps them quiet, and found a second job for a well-known protein complex called CCR4-NOT. In a peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, switching parts of the complex off unleashed genome-wide activity — including the jumping genes — while a family of guardian genes (the KZNF family) faded. The complex appears to guard the genome twice over: stopping the jumpers from being read in the first place, and degrading their messages if they are. Genome stability sounds abstract; it is the quiet housekeeping that keeps mutations linked to cancer and brain disorders from accumulating.

SDG 9 · Industry, innovation and infrastructure — Mechanism: tech innovation