Globalisation reaches gene regulation: the case for vertebrate limb development

Genome-wide transcription and the implications for genomic organization

Recent evidence of genome-wide transcription in several species indicates that the amount of transcription that occurs cannot be entirely accounted for by current sets of genome-wide annotations. Evidence indicates that most of both strands of the human genome might be transcribed, implying extensive overlap of transcriptional units and regulatory elements. These observations suggest that genomic architecture is not colinear, but is instead interleaved and modular, and that the same genomic sequences are multifunctional: that is, used for multiple independently regulated transcripts and as regulatory regions. What are the implications and consequences of such an interleaved genomic architecture in terms of increased information content, transcriptional complexity, evolution and disease states?