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Updated: Jul 21, 2025

In Vitro Selection of Engineered Transcriptional Repressors for Targeted Epigenetic Silencing
Published on: May 5, 2023
Transposable Elements: Epigenetic Silencing Mechanisms or Modulating Tools for Vertebrate Adaptations? Two Sides of
Elisa Carotti1, Federica Carducci1, Marco Barucca1
1Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e dell'Ambiente, Università Politecnica delle Marche, 60131 Ancona, Italy.
None:
Transposable elements constitute one of the main components of eukaryotic genomes. In vertebrates, they differ in content, typology, and family diversity and played a crucial role in the evolution of this taxon. However, due to their transposition ability, TEs can be responsible for genome instability, and thus silencing mechanisms were evolved to allow the coexistence between TEs and eukaryotic host-coding genes. Several papers are highlighting in TEs the presence of regulatory elements involved in regulating nearby genes in a tissue-specific fashion. This suggests that TEs are not sequences merely to silence; rather, they can be domesticated for the regulation of host-coding gene expression, permitting species adaptation and resilience as well as ensuring human health. This review presents the main silencing mechanisms acting in vertebrates and the importance of exploiting these mechanisms for TE control to rewire gene expression networks, challenging the general view of TEs as threatening elements.
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