Scientists have just found tens of thousands of tiny, hidden “knots” in our DNA, and these knots might be controlling how our genes work. This exciting discovery could even open the door to new treatments for diseases like cancer!
DNA is the code that makes us who we are. It’s like a set of instructions written with four chemical letters: A, T, G, and C. Normally, these letters pair up in a specific way—A with T, and G with C—to form a ladder-like structure. But sometimes, things don’t go as expected. Instead of G and C pairing up as usual, two C’s can latch onto each other. When this happens, the DNA twists up, forming what scientists call an “i-motif,” a strange knot-like structure.
Back in 2018, researchers first spotted these i-motifs in human cells, but they weren’t sure exactly what they did. Now, scientists have found over 50,000 of these knots scattered throughout the human genome. And here’s the big deal—they seem to play a role in controlling when certain genes turn on or off, almost like switches!
The team behind this discovery, from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Australia, mapped out where these knots are located in our DNA. They found that i-motifs often appear in parts of the genome that are crucial for controlling gene activity. This suggests that these tiny structures are doing more than just sitting around—they might actually be regulating important processes in our cells.
To figure this out, the scientists used special antibodies (proteins that recognize specific targets) to find the i-motifs. These antibodies latched onto the knots, allowing the researchers to pinpoint exactly where they were in the DNA. When they sequenced this DNA, they found that many i-motifs were linked to genes that are super active during the cell cycle—the process where cells grow and divide.
What’s more intriguing is that the scientists found a lot of these knots in the “promoter” regions of genes tied to cancer. Promoters are like the control centers of genes; they decide when a gene should be switched on or off. In cancer, these switches often go haywire, leading to uncontrolled cell growth. Since i-motifs are found in these crucial regions, scientists believe they could be involved in how cancer develops.
This discovery offers a new and exciting possibility: if these i-motifs are controlling genes linked to diseases like cancer, then maybe scientists could target these knots with drugs. Imagine—new treatments that target the very structure of your DNA!
One gene family that the researchers are especially interested in is called the MYC gene family. This group of genes is known to be out of control in about 70% of human cancers. The fact that i-motifs are present in these genes raises the exciting idea that we might one day develop drugs that could stop these knots from doing harm.
Although there’s still a lot of work to be done, this research gives hope that one day we might be able to treat diseases like cancer in a completely new way—by targeting the very knots in our DNA that control our genes. Exciting times are ahead!
