Transposable elements as a molecular evolutionary force.
This essay addresses the paradoxes of the complex and highly redundant genomes. The central theses developed are that: (1) the distinctive feature of complex genomes is the existence of epigenetic mechanisms that permit extremely high levels of both tandem and dispersed redundancy; (2) the special contribution of transposable elements is to modularize the genome; and (3) the labilizing forces of recombination and transposition are just barely contained, giving a dynamic genetic system of ever increasing complexity that verges on the chaotic.
Biotechnology Institute, Pennsylvania State University, University Park 16802, USA.
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Fedoroff
D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D019175:DNA Methylation; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D005057:Eukaryotic Cells; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D020440:Gene Duplication; D016678:Genome; D006801:Humans; D011995:Recombination, Genetic; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid
D004251:DNA Transposable Elements