Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 15, 2026

Real-Time Quantification of the Effects of IS200/IS605 Family-Associated TnpB on Transposon Activity
Published on: January 20, 2023
Evolutionary rate of human tissue-specific genes are related with transposable element insertions
1Laboratory for Comparative Genomics and Bioinformatics & Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Biodiversity and Biotechnology, College of Life Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, 210046, China.
Abstract:
The influence of transposable elements (TEs) on genome evolution has been widely studied. However, it remains unclear whether TE insertions also impact on evolutionary rate of human genes. In this study, we have compared the differences in TEs and evolutionary rates between human tissue-specific genes. Our results showed that various functional categories of human tissue-specific genes contained different TE numbers and divergent values of Ka/Ks, with human nucleic acid binding transcription factor activity genes having the fewest TE density and Ka/Ks value. Interestingly, we also found that human tissue-specific genes with TEs have also undergone faster evolution than those without TEs. Therefore, TEs have significant impact on the evolutionary rates of human tissue-specific genes. Furthermore, local genomic properties such as gene length, GC content and recombination rate may reflect a true transpositional bias for the particular TEs. Our results may provide important insights for further elucidating the evolution of human tissue-specific genes.
Related Concept Videos
Overview of Transposition and Recombination
DNA-only Transposons
The donor site from where the transposon is excised is either degraded or...
Non-LTR Retrotransposons
Transposons
LTR Retrotransposons
The internal coding region of LTR retrotransposons and their mechanism of transposition closely resembles a...
Gene Evolution - Fast or Slow?
In contrast, regions which code...

