John Parrington’s book The Deeper Genome provides us with a closer look at the enigma of junk DNA. Often referred to as the dark matter of the genome, junk DNA is an important but often overlooked part of the human genome. (Perhaps, in light of recent discoveries, this term might be somewhat problematic; however, it is the term that Parrington uses and we will follow that here.) The dark matter...

Perinatal exposure to a maternal "junk-food" diet has been demonstrated to increase the preference for palatable diets in adult offspring. We aimed to determine whether this increased preference could be attributed to changes in μ-opioid receptor expression within the mesolimbic reward pathway. We report here that mRNA expression of the μ-opioid receptor in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) at w...

Wetlands are areas inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support a prevalence of vegetation adapted for life in saturated conditions (Federal register, Circular 33; 1984). There is no clear boundary between open water and wetland on the one hand and wetland and terrestrial communities on the other hand (Bradbury and Grace, 1983). Wetlands ar...

HIV-1 viruses and virus-like particles (VLPs) bear nonnative "junk" forms of envelope (Env) glycoprotein that may undermine the development of antibody responses against functional gp120/gp41 trimers, thereby blunting the ability of particles to elicit neutralizing antibodies. Here, we sought to better understand the nature of junk Env with a view to devising strategies for its removal. Initial...