Jump-starting life: balancing transposable element co-option and genome integrity in the developing mammalian embryo.
EMBO Rep
; 25(4): 1721-1733, 2024 Apr.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38528171
ABSTRACT
Remnants of transposable elements (TEs) are widely expressed throughout mammalian embryo development. Originally infesting our genomes as selfish elements and acting as a source of genome instability, several of these elements have been co-opted as part of a complex system of genome regulation. Many TEs have lost transposition ability and their transcriptional potential has been tampered as a result of interactions with the host throughout evolutionary time. It has been proposed that TEs have been ultimately repurposed to function as gene regulatory hubs scattered throughout our genomes. In the early embryo in particular, TEs find a perfect environment of naïve chromatin to escape transcriptional repression by the host. As a consequence, it is thought that hosts found ways to co-opt TE sequences to regulate large-scale changes in chromatin and transcription state of their genomes. In this review, we discuss several examples of TEs expressed during embryo development, their potential for co-option in genome regulation and the evolutionary pressures on TEs and on our genomes.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
DNA Transposable Elements
/
Gene Expression Regulation
Limits:
Animals
Language:
En
Journal:
EMBO Rep
Journal subject:
BIOLOGIA MOLECULAR
Year:
2024
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Germany