Certain virus-derived genomic elements have now been shown to actively regulate important developmental processes
Wednesday, October 22, 2014 - 07:30
in Biology & Nature
Like fossils buried beneath a modern landscape, the human genome is littered with sequences that originated from ancient viral DNA insertion events. Scientists have long assumed that these 'transposable elements' are, like fossils, biologically inactive and primarily interesting as a window into evolutionary history. However, researchers at the A*STAR Genome Institute of Singapore have now uncovered evidence that some of these sequences play a prominent role in early embryonic development.