Our recent ability to sequence entire genomes, along with all of their transcribed RNAs, has led to the surprising finding that only ∼1% of the human genome is used to encode proteins. This finding has led to vigorous debate over the functional importance of the transcribed but untranslated portions of the genome. Currently, scientists tend to assume coding genes are functional until proven not to be, while the opposite is true for noncoding genes. This review takes a new look at the evidence for and against widespread noncoding gene functionality. We focus in particular on long noncoding RNA (noncoding RNAs longer than 200 nucleotides) genes and their 'junk' associates, transposable elements, and satellite repeats. Taken together, the suggestion put forward is that more of this junk DNA may be functional than nonfunctional and that noncoding RNAs and transposable elements act symbiotically to drive evolution.

中文翻译：

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长的非编码RNA和重复元件：垃圾还是亲密的进化伙伴？

我们最近对整个基因组及其所有转录RNA进行测序的能力，导致了令人惊讶的发现，即仅约1％的人类基因组用于编码蛋白质。这一发现引起了关于基因组的转录但未翻译部分的功能重要性的激烈辩论。当前，科学家倾向于假定编码基因在直到被证明不起作用之前才起作用，而对于非编码基因则相反。这篇综述重新审视了支持和反对广泛的非编码基因功能的证据。我们特别关注长的非编码RNA（长度大于200个核苷酸的非编码RNA）基因及其“垃圾”关联，转座因子和卫星重复序列。在一起