The evolutionary history of human DNA transposons: evidence for intense activity in the primate lineage.

ABSTRACT: Class 2, or DNA transposons, make up approximately 3% of the human genome, yet the evolutionary history of these elements has been largely overlooked and remains poorly understood. Here we carried out the first comprehensive analysis of the activity of human DNA transposons over the course of primate evolution using three independent computational methods. First, we conducted an exhaustive search for human DNA transposons nested within L1 and Alu elements known to be primate specific. Second, we assessed the presence/absence of 794 human DNA transposons at orthologous positions in 10 mammalian species using sequence data generated by The ENCODE Project. These two approaches, which do not rely upon sequence divergence, allowed us to classify DNA transposons into three different categories:

SUBMITTER: Pace JK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1832089 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature