Kasahara Yamato, Semba Kentaro, Watanabe Shinya, Ishikawa Kosuke
Department of Life Science and Medical Bioscience, Waseda University, 2-2 Wakamatsu-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-8480, Japan.
Translational Research Center, Fukushima Medical University, 1 Hikarigaoka, Fukushima 960-1295, Japan.
Biomedicines. 2025 Jul 9;13(7):1682. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines13071682.
Transposons are mobile genetic elements capable of moving within the genome. Leveraging this property-particularly the cut-and-paste mechanism of DNA transposons-has enabled the development of technologies for inserting exogenous DNA fragments into host genomes. While targeted integration is a key goal for therapeutic applications, this review highlights the value of their intrinsic randomness. By combining the ability to freely design the DNA cargo with the stochastic nature of transposon integration, it becomes possible to generate highly sensitive reporter cells. These can be used to efficiently identify functional markers, uncover novel signaling pathways, and establish innovative platforms for drug screening. As more subfamilies of transposons become available for research use, their complementary biases may enhance the coverage and diversity of genome-wide screening approaches. Although inherently unpredictable, this strategy embraces randomness as a strength, and we propose that it holds great promise for driving new advances in biology, cellular engineering, and medical research.
转座子是能够在基因组内移动的可移动遗传元件。利用这一特性，特别是DNA转座子的剪切粘贴机制，已促成了将外源DNA片段插入宿主基因组的技术发展。虽然靶向整合是治疗应用的关键目标，但本综述强调了其内在随机性的价值。通过将自由设计DNA载体的能力与转座子整合的随机性相结合，就有可能产生高度敏感的报告细胞。这些细胞可用于高效识别功能标记、揭示新的信号通路，并建立创新的药物筛选平台。随着越来越多的转座子亚家族可供研究使用，它们互补的偏向性可能会提高全基因组筛选方法的覆盖范围和多样性。尽管本质上不可预测，但这种策略将随机性视为一种优势，我们认为它在推动生物学、细胞工程和医学研究的新进展方面具有巨大潜力。
