Recently, a group of scientists has discovered that there is DNA, even outside our genes, which they consider as dark genome. The segment of DNA, outside the genes which is known to us, or the dark genome encodes the proteins responsible for Schizophrenia and other mental disorders. In Schizophrenia, people suffer from impaired mental health conditions, illusions, hallucinations, and so on (IBT News Desk, 2021). These newly discovered genome codes the proteins, responsible for Schizophrenia and bipolar disorders.  Schizophrenia and bipolar disorders are severe mental disorders that are hard to diagnose. Scientists have discovered that the proteins within the dark genome are responsible for human development, but mutations or some disruptions in those genes are responsible for the occurrence of schizophrenia and bipolar disorders.

 

“By scanning through the entire genome we’ve found regions, not classed as genes in the traditional sense, which create proteins that appear to be associated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder,” explained by professor Sudhakaran Prabakaran of the University of Cambridge from the Genetics department.

 

It has been found that these genomic segments are specific to only humans. The dark genome is not found in any other vertebrates (Erady, et al., 2021). This mysterious group of genetic materials and their regulations are responsible for this kind of mental disorder and it can guide scientists in providing better treatment for this disorder. It has been discovered that there is a vast amount of genetic material alongside the genome, which is known to us. The exact functionalities of this mysterious portion of the dark genome are unknown though. 

“This opens up huge potential for new druggable targets. It’s really exciting because nobody has ever looked beyond the genes for clues to understanding and treating these conditions before”, explained the professor.

The scientists have mentioned that the traditional definition of a gene has restricted them for the further discovery of the function of the rest of the genome and when they started to look outside of the DNA, they have discovered that not only the genes, but the entire genome has the capabilities to manufacture proteins (IBT News Desk, 2021). Thus, they have become successful in finding new proteins which are associated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders. Recently, Prabakaran and his team have discovered more than 248000 genomes, which is outside of the traditionally defined genes, that codes the proteins associated with Schizophrenia (IBT News Desk, 2021). He has started to initiate seed funding, so that he can develop new therapeutics to target the proteins, implicating schizophrenia and bipolar disorders.

 

References

Erady, C., Amin, K., Onilogbo, T. O., Tomasik, J., Jukes-Jones, R., Umrania, Y., & Prabakaran, S. (2021). Novel open reading frames in human accelerated regions and transposable elements reveal new leads to understanding schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Molecular Psychiatry, 1-14. Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-021-01405-6

IBT News Desk. (2021, December 13). Clues to the treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are found in the recently-evolved region of the ‘dark genome’. Retrieved from International Business Times: https://www.ibtimes.co.in/clues-treatment-schizophrenia-bipolar-disorder-found-recently-evolved-region-dark-genome-844012