Many living organisms suffer from parasites, which use the hosts’ resources for their own purposes. The problem of parasitism occurs at all levels right down to the DNA scale. Genomes may contain up ...

Researchers from UNSW Sydney have discovered that a particular transposable element, or jumping gene, in the genome has a profound effect on the immune response to virus infection. The findings in ...

Researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney report they have discovered that a particular transposable element in the genome has an effect on the immune response to virus ...

DNA transposable elements are contiguous stretches of genomic DNA that can change the number of their copies in the genome or move their position in the genome, often affecting the activity of nearby ...

To understand how organisms are related, researchers use molecular information to construct phylogenetic trees. Most of the time, scientists use thousands of protein-coding sequences to determine ...

Over a decade after sequencing the human genome, it has now become clear that the genome is not mostly ‘junk’ as previously thought. In fact, the ENCODE project consortium of dozens of labs and ...

Mammalian genomes have been colonised by transposable elements (TEs), so called ‘genetic parasites’, which occupy ~ 50% of genomic DNA and harbour the potential to propagate, resulting in genetic ...

So-called transposons are abundant DNA-elements found in every eukaryotic organism as a consequence of their ability to jump and multiply within the host genome. Their activity represents a threat to ...

Researchers in Michigan published a study “Transposable elements contribute to cell and species-specific chromatin looping and gene regulation in mammalian genomes” in Nature Communications that shows ...

Until recently, little was known about how transposable elements contribute to gene regulation. These are little pieces of DNA that can replicate themselves and spread out in the genome. Although they ...