The dark side of 'junk' DNA
Researchers at the University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center report in the journal Cell Reports that certain short, repetitive sequences of DNA, or "junk," play an important role in the development of Ewing sarcoma, a rare bone and soft tissue cancer that occurs most commonly in children and adolescents. "Some people may still think of these non-coding sequences as junk; that they don't really do anything but act as hangers-on to the more famous parts of the genome," said the study's senior author Ian J. Davis, MD, PHD, a pediatric oncologist and researcher at UNC Lineberger and the Denman Hammond Associate Professor in Childhood Cancer at the UNC School of Medicine. "But we found that repetitive elements contribute to cancer development for Ewing sarcoma based on traits that they share with immature cells." For most people with Ewing sarcoma, the tumors have a mutation that creates a new gene called EWSR1-FLI1. Th...