Epigenetic histone modifications of human transposable elements: genome defense versus exaptation.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Transposition is disruptive in nature and, thus, it is imperative for host genomes to evolve mechanisms that suppress the activity of transposable elements (TEs). At the same time, transposition also provides diverse sequences that can be exapted by host genomes as functional elements. These notions form the basis of two competing hypotheses pertaining to the role of epigenetic modifications of TEs in eukaryotic genomes: the genome defense hypothesis and the exaptation hypothesis. To date, all available evidence points to the genome defense hypothesis as the best explanation for the biological role of TE epigenetic modifications.

Results

We evaluated several predictions generated by the genome defense hypothesis versus the exaptation hypothesis using recently char

SUBMITTER: Huda A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2836006 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature