Antisense Translates into Sense

The paradigm that DNA is the central bank of genetic information within the cell, and that portions of the DNA are copied via transcription to RNA, which is subsequently decoded to synthesize protein in a cell, is basically true throughout cellular evolution. However, it is also true that although this is a general blueprint for regulating how genes are expressed, evolution, with its varied selective pressures, has allowed organisms to develop many different mechanisms for regulating gene expression. As a consequence, a plethora of novel regulatory schemes from bacteria to mammalian cells has been described. Organisms with constraints on genome size have used novel genetic tricks to both regulate gene expression and synthesize multiple proteins from a single gene. However, in higher eucaryotes, the common perception is that genome size is not an issue, and that genes will typically...