Thursday, October 25, 2018

Unwanted DNA Deleted by "Jumping" Genes

The discovery of a new family of molecules may have been a ground-breaking discovery. These new molecules strictly extract undesirable DNA while reproduction in ciliates. Transposons play a large role in the jumping around of these genes. They are moved around by specific enzymes called tranposases. Transposons have jumped around throughout many years of evolutions, allowing for the organisms that they host to obtain that genes and functions that they carry leading to domestication.

The enzyme, transposases, originates form a family called PiggyBac that have domesticated themselves in other organisms. When ciliates, also known as Paramecium, reproduce, there is an extremely important section of their DNA that also includes the transposons. The study that was conducted looked closer into the PiggyBac families and transposons that intricately delete DNA from the genetic makeup of Paramecium. They later hindered the activity of PiggyBac and tranposases, that resulted in discovering a decrease in efficiency, accurately, and the length of the DNA sequence. Going forward, studies need to consider that transposes may have the same cellular behavior as the PiggMac group found in the PiggyBac family. This type of discovery is raising many questions in the science industry. Can this work in other organisms? If so, how? What are the negative effects of this "jumping" gene? I believe that there's still more that needs to be done in order to find the answers to these many questions.


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