New theory... ?

[rlinsurf]

Hi--

I'm new to this forum, and not much less to biology. So I hope you'll forgive my n00bness, especially for the extremely vague nature of this question.

I saw a documentary on PBS about some new genetic theory, which is about a macro realm, or perhaps a layer (?) above DNA, where the theory says, is where most adaptations occur, by chemicals acting on the DNA? Perhaps something like the e-realm or t-realm (I know that's wrong!)?

Can someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks

[jonmoulton]

I didn't see the documentary, but there is a layer of gene expression regulation that is controlled by RNA, especially by microRNAs (miRNA), and that is a fairly recent discovery. Is that what you are referring to?

[rlinsurf]

Hm. IIRC, it did have something to do with RNA. But there was another name for it. Is there some sort of layer involved? I'm sorry, I wish I could remember more. The thing that astonished me was when they said that in this layer, changes were far more rapid than in DNA, and that some huge number of changes (90%?) were possibly due to this effect. They also had a name for the layer, as I (tried) to remember above.

[Darby]

There is a whole movement focused on changes in promoters and other gene expression mechanisms in driving evolutionary changes.

[canalon]

Are you talking about epigenetics?
There are now quite a lot of data showing that besides genes quite a lot of things can be transmitted by other means, for example DNA methylation state, presence of some proteins, regulatory RNA etc...

[Darby]

This might help -

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008 ... s.php#more