Selfish DNA: Homing Endonucleases Find a Home

Authors

David R. Edgell, University of Western OntarioFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-10-2009

Journal

Current Biology

Volume

189

Issue

3

First Page

115

Last Page

117

URL with Digital Object Identifier

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2008.12.019

Abstract

Self-splicing group I introns come in two flavours - those with a homing endonuclease to promote mobility of the intron, and those without an endonuclease. How homing endonucleases and self-splicing introns associate to form a composite selfish genetic element is a question of long-standing interest. Recent work has revealed that a shared characteristic of both introns and endonucleases, the targeting of conserved sequences, may provide the impetus for the evolution of composite mobile genetic elements.