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This is a slightly different result, actually - they're suggesting that these different variants are actually proteins of unrelated function. I'm not sure I buy

This is a slightly different result, actually - they're suggesting that these different variants are actually proteins of unrelated function. I'm not sure I buy this off a vast interaction study, which is a pretty artificial and noisy way to scan protein function, but it's a novel claim.

timr 11y ago
"they're suggesting that these different variants are actually proteins of unrelated function....it's a novel claim." Actually, that's old news, too. The only thing new here is that they're talking about a paper that did a large-scale analysis of the phenomenon. From the paper's [1] abstract: "While alternative splicing is known to diversify the functional characteristics of some genes, the extent to which protein isoforms globally contribute to functional complexity on a proteomic scale remains unknown. To address this systematically, we..." That said, I look forward to the day when the mass-media discovers glycosylation and other forms of post-translational modification, and writes the next article in this series on How Scientists Had It Wrong All Along (tm). [1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867416300435 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867416...
- dkural 11y ago
  It's not the mass media only, it's also the PR offices of these institutes, and the scientists that go along with it. The reason these institutes value overblown media coverage is, well, it's needed and often enough to convince their hedge-fund retired billionaire donors that Amazing Things are happening there.
dnautics 11y ago
There's a lot of that that's not novel. Ttr for example is largely a (retinol binding protein)-carrier in the bloodstream, but it's function in the brain is...?? Maybe a protein that flushes small molecules accumulated in the brain? The knockout mouse has an very very subtle behavioral change.
Blahah 11y ago
We've known this result for nearly as long as we've known about alternative splicing too. All it takes is a single exon with some functional motif to allow multiple proteins with different functions from a single gene.

timr 11y ago

"they're suggesting that these different variants are actually proteins of unrelated function....it's a novel claim." Actually, that's old news, too. The only thing new here is that they're talking about a paper that did a large-scale analysis of the phenomenon. From the paper's [1] abstract: "While alternative splicing is known to diversify the functional characteristics of some genes, the extent to which protein isoforms globally contribute to functional complexity on a proteomic scale remains unknown. To address this systematically, we..." That said, I look forward to the day when the mass-media discovers glycosylation and other forms of post-translational modification, and writes the next article in this series on How Scientists Had It Wrong All Along (tm). [1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867416300435 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867416...

dkural 11y ago
It's not the mass media only, it's also the PR offices of these institutes, and the scientists that go along with it. The reason these institutes value overblown media coverage is, well, it's needed and often enough to convince their hedge-fund retired billionaire donors that Amazing Things are happening there.

dnautics 11y ago

There's a lot of that that's not novel. Ttr for example is largely a (retinol binding protein)-carrier in the bloodstream, but it's function in the brain is...?? Maybe a protein that flushes small molecules accumulated in the brain? The knockout mouse has an very very subtle behavioral change.

Blahah 11y ago

We've known this result for nearly as long as we've known about alternative splicing too. All it takes is a single exon with some functional motif to allow multiple proteins with different functions from a single gene.