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Getting the latest healthcare news for you
Getting the latest healthcare news for you
Genes from different chromosomes can team up to make brand-new proteins. Harvard researchers have discovered that instructions from separate genes can merge into chimeric mRNAs, producing functional proteins that science didn't even know existed. The finding, published in Nature, could unlock new drug targets for cancer, inflammatory diseases, and more.
For decades, biology's central dogma held that one gene makes one protein. Harvard Medical School researchers have just blown that wide open. A study published in Nature reveals that genes from entirely different chromosomes — even distant ones — can physically loop together and combine their instructions to produce chimeric mRNAs, which then create hybrid proteins that were completely unknown to science until now.
Using a cutting-edge technique called direct RNA sequencing, the team compiled a "dark genome" library of over 30,000 chimeric mRNAs observed in mammalian cells. They then zeroed in on one — a fusion of the GSDMD and TMEM106A genes — and showed it plays a critical role in the immune response in mice, helping regulate pyroptosis, the explosive cell-death process that drives inflammation.
Key Takeaways
Why it matters: This discovery essentially adds a new chapter to the human genome playbook. If chimeric proteins are widespread — and researchers suspect they are — they could represent an entirely overlooked class of drug targets, offering fresh hope for diseases that have long stumped medicine.
