UC Santa Cruz researchers are studying the ways certain genetic elements hide and make copies of themselves, so they can propagate within a species’ DNA, or even hop from one species to an unrelated one in a process called “horizontal gene transfer."
As usual, the university press office distorts and over extrapolates what the paper actually accomplished.
Still cool though. This work traces back the types of transposons responsible for creating introns and identifies at least 8 (?) cases of horizontal transfer.
The medical implications are nought. We already know about the presence of introns and how variants in introns can sometimes cause disease by misdirecting splicing.
As usual, the university press office distorts and over extrapolates what the paper actually accomplished.
Still cool though. This work traces back the types of transposons responsible for creating introns and identifies at least 8 (?) cases of horizontal transfer.
The medical implications are nought. We already know about the presence of introns and how variants in introns can sometimes cause disease by misdirecting splicing.