RNA Interference, Transposon Silencing, and Cosuppression in the Caenorhabditis elegans Germ Line: Similarities and Differences
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Excerpt
Like all genomes analyzed to date, the Caenorhabditiselegans genome contains numerous transposable elements (or remnants of them); in C. elegans, only the DNAtransposons have remained active. Jumping of these elements can be frequently detected in the soma but not inthe germ line of the most studied lab strain Bristol N2(Emmons and Yesner 1984). Nevertheless, in some natural isolates, such as Bergerac, transposition also occurs inthe germ line (Moerman and Waterston 1984; Eide andAnderson 1985; Collins et al. 1987). In addition, it is possible after mutagenesis to recover lines from Bristol N2 inwhich germ line transposition occurs (Ketting et al. 1999;Tabara et al. 1999). Taken together, these observationssuggest that, in the C. elegans germ line, an active systemof regulation exists to silence transposition...
