28jan13: Stuff I'm currently learning, TEs

Man, I haven't been posting for a while. Is this going to turn out to be a good place for taking notes? I guess we'll find out. For my last journal club I presented a paper on endogenous retro viruses. I have been reading up on them and discovering that they (and TEs {transposable elements}) hold very interesting genetic implications. A large part of eukaryotic genomes (and even more in plants!) is made of TE sequences, figuring out their role in evolution is going to be tricky. In some papers I was parousing last night, I found/learned that it's theorized that TEs played an important role in speciation by moving regulatory elements around the genome. When they hop around the genome, randomly inserting them selves in new places, they can interrupt genes and cause new isoforms. The high level of sequence homology also means that TEs might increase opportunities for recombination. In conclusion: TEs are a very interesting topic in genetics, and I think they'll end up earning someone another Noble Prize, after Barbara McClintock.