What would happen if you create an organism with all junk DNA spliced out?

[ensabah6]

What would happen if you create an organism with all junk DNA spliced out?
While some introns are needed, it appears most DNA does not serve any function. Could a viable yeast or mouse be created with all junk DNA taken out?

 

[Moonbear]

I guess that would be the experiment to determine if it's really junk, or just that the function hasn't yet been identified. The obvious technical difficulty of attempting such an experiment should be sufficient to explain why it has not been done, and thus there is not an answer to your question.

 

[dtl42]

Yea, I believe most of the "junk" only appears that way. It is more probable that the DNA has a very complex function and we simply have not discovered it.

 

[Cincinnatus]

A lot of the "junk" DNA really is junk from our point of view. For example, there are lots of highly repetitive transposon related sequences. Also, there are pseudogenes, the remnants of genes that have been mutated to nonfunctionality but remain present in the genome. There are many examples of such junk in the genome.

Of course this is not to say that some of the "junk" DNA doesn't serve some function we have not yet discovered...

 

[BoomBoom]

That organism would most likely not develope and therefore would not be a viable life-form.
I dislike the term "junk" DNA. Just because a section of DNA is not translated into protein does not mean it serves no purpose at all. Many regulatory elements that play a role in gene expression are located in these areas.

When you compare exons only, a chimpanzee is less than 1% divergent from a human. Obviously there must be much more going on to account for the difference between the two species.

 

[madphysics]

Yea, I believe most of the "junk" only appears that way. It is more probable that the DNA has a very complex function and we simply have not discovered it.

An organism only evolves to have the DNA it has because that is all it needs to survive. Just because it is there and we don't know it's purpose doesn't mean it is "junk."

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/may/big-love

 

[corra]

more genes means more potential. so why remove old ones if you are not 110% certain of its use. we may have mapped the human genome but that does not mean we know what the heck we're dealing with.

 

[dimensionless]

As a genomics layman, I wonder if there is some benefit to having different genes transcribed at specific time intervals and also at a specific distance from one another. Speaking hypothetically, some of the 'junk' DNA might also serve as 'evolutionary potential.' This could result in a species having greater adaptability over time.