Genome complexity: useful transposons (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, August 16, 2013, 23:55 (4117 days ago) @ David Turell

Quotes from the article:-"Transposons are DNA elements that can multiply and change their location within an organism's genome. Discovered in the 1940s, for years they were thought to be unimportant and were called "junk DNA."-"While it has been known for a while that transposon insertions can have positive effects for their respective host organisms and accelerate evolution of their hosts, cases of such adaptive transposon insertions have been rarely documented and are, so far, poorly understood."-"It would make sense to assume that at other transposons, H3K9me2 levels are also modulated during immune responses and that this epigenetic mark affects the activity of other genes that are important for plant immunity," Eulgem said. "If this is true, we have uncovered a completely new genetic -- or epigenetic -- mechanism that allows plants to sense that they are under pathogen attack and to initiate appropriate immune responses.'"-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130815113723.htm