Bowen Nathan J, Jordan I King
Section on Eukaryotic Transposable Elements, Laboratory of Eukaryotic Gene Regulation, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.
Curr Issues Mol Biol. 2002 Jul;4(3):65-76.
Eukaryotic transposable elements are ubiquitous and widespread mobile genetic entities. These elements often make up a substantial fraction of the host genomes in which they reside. For example, approximately 1/2 of the human genome was recently shown to consist of transposable element sequences. There is a growing body of evidence that demonstrates that transposable elements have been major players in genome evolution. A sample of this evidence is reviewed here with an emphasis on the role that transposable elements may have played in driving the evolution of eukaryotic complexity. A number of specific scenarios are presented that implicate transposable elements in the evolution of the complex molecular and cellular machinery that are characteristic of the eukaryotic domain of life.
真核生物转座元件是普遍存在且广泛分布的可移动遗传实体。这些元件在其所驻留的宿主基因组中通常占很大一部分。例如，最近研究表明人类基因组约一半由转座元件序列组成。越来越多的证据表明，转座元件在基因组进化中发挥了重要作用。本文回顾了部分此类证据，重点关注转座元件在推动真核生物复杂性进化过程中可能扮演的角色。文中还提出了一些具体情形，这些情形表明转座元件参与了构成真核生物生命领域特征的复杂分子和细胞机制的进化。
