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TEs or not TEs? That is the evolutionary question

Keren Vaknin*, Amir Goren and Gil Ast

Author Affiliations

Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69987, Israel

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Journal of Biology 2009, 8:83 doi:10.1186/jbiol188

Published: 23 October 2009

Abstract

Transposable elements (TEs) have contributed a wide range of functional sequences to their host genomes. A recent paper in BMC Molecular Biology discusses the creation of new transcripts by transposable element insertion upstream of retrocopies and the involvement of such insertions in tissue-specific post-transcriptional regulation.