Johns Hopkins researchers have found that the computer programs used in current methods of scanning the genome for regulatory DNA, regions of DNA that can control gene activity, could miss more than 60% of these regulatory DNA sequences.

In their pilot project, Hopkins researchers conducted an exhaustive analysis of the DNA sequence around the phox2b gene in Zebrafish, and found 17 regulatory sequences. The team then analyzed the entire region around the phox2b gene with five commonly used computer programs. The latter established methods picked up only 29 percent to 61 percent of the identified phox2b regulators.