"Alu sequences are edited in over 100 million sites spread throughout the genome.
These editing sites potentially serve as a digital programming system with staggering amounts of reprogrammable memory.
Additionally, there is evidence they are involved in alternative splicing, RNA editing, and translation regulation. It has been proposed that Alu-based RNA editing might be used to tell the cell not to translate the edited transcript.
Further, many Alus serve as enhancers for various genes. Many of the enhancements are tissue-specific, and some are expressed differentially by tissue type.
---Alus involved in the digital programming system are much more active in humans than in apes. This higher activity cannot be explained by common ancestry but can be explained by a common designer."
---Alus involved in the digital programming system are much more active in humans than in apes. This higher activity cannot be explained by common ancestry but can be explained by a common designer."
AIG
Q: What is Alus?
"Alus, the short interspersed repeated sequences (SINEs), are retrotransposons that litter the human genomes and have long been considered junk DNA. However, recent findings that these mobile elements are transcribed, both as distinct RNA polymerase III
Indeed, Alu RNAs have been shown to control mRNA processing at several levels, to have complex regulatory functions such as transcriptional repression and modulating alternative splicing and to cause a host of human genetic diseases.
Alu RNAs embedded in Pol II transcripts can promote evolution and proteome diversity, which further indicates that these mobile retroelements are in fact genomic gems rather than genomic junks." Scientifica
