10 Interesting Facts About Jumping Genes (Tansposons/Transposable Elements)

                  Facts about Jumping Genes

Jumping genes or transposable elements (TE) are the short sequences in genomes that can alter their position by itself. It was firstly reported by Barbra McClintock and received Nobel Prize in 1983. Generally there are two types of TE, former is retro-transposons  and later one is DNA transposons. Initially, it was wrongly predicted that these are junk DNA but later research  gave a new era about jumping genes. Some interesting facts and uses are given below:

1. Retrotransposons are common in eukaryotes and DNA transposons are common in prokaryotes. It is reported fact that about 45% and 90% genome of human and maize genome respectively, consist of transposable elements.
2. Jumping genes are the cause of natural mutations by insertion themselves in sequence and disable the genes. This cause the genetic disease in host organisms e.g., hemophilia, porphyria, cancer and alzheimer's disease etc.  
3. They can cause chromosomal duplication through copying multiple sequence in single sequence and cause problem during cell division.
4. DNA sequence features and biochemical properties witnesses that TEs and viruses arose from same ancestors.
5. It is reported that TEs play an important role in evolution because it has capability of horizontal gene transfer from one species to  another because it is some times known as selfish DNA parasitic elements.
6. Some transposons are much important because they contain disease resistance genes. That genes are the major consideration for the plant breeder during molecular breeding in plants.
7. Jumping genes are also used as vector for transformation of genes.
8. These are the sites of genetic recombination and therefore known as the controllers of genetic expression. 
9. Some trnasposons consist of antibiotic resistance genes or toxins are known as composite transposons.
10. It is reported fact that some transposons are helpful for the plants for acclimatization by regulating the other genes during stress.

Referral Links:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposable_element#Applications
2. https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/transposons-or-jumping-genes-not-junk-dna-1211/
3. https://www.slideshare.net/researcher1234/transposonsjumping-genes