TRANSPOSONS - SCI & TECH
News:
How jumping genes and RNA bridges promise
to shake up biomedicine
What's in the news?
●
Recently, researchers used cryo-electron microscopy
to study the IS110 transposons.
Transposons:
●
Barbara
McClintock at the Carnegie Institution found that some
genes were able to move around within the genome.
●
These genes were called
mobile elements or transposons.
Important Takeaways:
●
Between 1948 and 1983,
researchers found transposons in an array of life-forms, including bacteriophages, bacteria, plants, worms,
fruit flies, mosquitos, mice, and humans.
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They were nicknamed ‘jumping genes’.
Features of Transposons:
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Transposons influence
the effects of genes by turning ‘on’ or
‘off’ their expression using a variety of epigenetic mechanisms.
●
They are thus rightly
called the tools of evolution, for
their ability to rearrange the genome and introduce changes.
Issues of Transposons:
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More than 45% of the human genome consists of
transposable elements.
○
Just as they create
diversity, they also create mutations in
genes and lead to diseases.
● However, most of the transposons have themselves inherited mutations and have become inactive, and thus can’t move around within the gnome.