Pages

Sunday, September 27, 2020

Natural GMOs Part 302: A field guide to mobile DNA

 


Summary

Transposable elements (TEs) are mobile DNA sequences that propagate within genomes. Through diverse invasion strategies, TEs have come to occupy a substantial fraction of nearly all eukaryotic genomes, and they represent a major source of genetic variation and novelty. Here we review the defining features of each major group of eukaryotic TEs and explore their evolutionary origins and relationships. We discuss how the unique biology of different TEs influences their propagation and distribution within and across genomes. Environmental and genetic factors acting at the level of the host species further modulate the activity, diversification, and fate of TEs, producing the dramatic variation in TE content observed across eukaryotes. We argue that cataloging TE diversity and dissecting the idiosyncratic behavior of individual elements are crucial to expanding our comprehension of their impact on the biology of genomes and the evolution of species.


A Field Guide to Eukaryotic Transposable Elements
Jonathan N. Wells and Cédric Feschotte
Annual Review of Genetics
Vol. 54:- (Volume publication date November 2020)
Review in Advance first posted online on September 21, 2020. (Changes may still occur before final publication.)
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-genet-040620-022145

Related articles

No comments:

Post a Comment