Artificial intelligence decodes DNA

An artificial intelligence program has helped decode DNA by peering into mammalian cells and determining where they read genetic information. The program was developed by researcher Brendan Frey and colleagues of the University of Toronto. A news release describes their work: To hunt for genetic instructions, Frey, along with Professor Timothy Hughes and researchers from Mount Sinai Hospital and the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, explored samples from 37 mouse tissues.

They used microarraysdevices that probe for DNA sequences using complimentary nucleic acids to light up regions of DNA that were being read by cells in diverse body parts such as the heart, lungs and brain. When nearby regions in the DNA have similar patterns of activity, this indicates they likely belong to a gene.
"We were able to feed the patterns into an artificial intelligence computer program developed in my group," Frey says. "The computer analysis identified thousands of instructions and changed our view of how genes work." For example, their analysis showed that a region of the fourth chromosome which was thought to contain four short genes actually contains a single very long gene, which is now thought to be involved in the assembly of large protein molecules in the nucleus. By better understanding this and other genes, researchers hope to learn how these genes malfunction and cause disease.
The program also revealed a startling discovery: there are no new protein-coding genes to be discoveredthe genetic instructions that are largely responsible for managing cells, determining everything from eye colour to disease. By analysing the data and inferring the most likely genes based on user-programmed variables, the program matched what research has taken 30 years to discover. "This flies in the face of research that says there are many more protein-coding genes to be discovered," Hughes says. "We've reached a milestone in gene exploration."
Frey and colleagues have received a CDN $22-million grant to further their efforts, which will allow them to look into such things as the exploration of what functions the new genes perform and how the cell determines whether or not a gene should be read from the DNA.

SOURCE: Nature Genetics