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Transposable Elements and Stress in Vertebrates: An Overview.

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TLDR
A review of the impact of TEs in vertebrate genomes is presented in this article, where the authors explore the effects of environmental and dietary factor exposures on TE activity in mammals, which is the most studied group among vertebrates.
Abstract
Since their identification as genomic regulatory elements, Transposable Elements (TEs) were considered, at first, molecular parasites and later as an important source of genetic diversity and regulatory innovations. In vertebrates in particular, TEs have been recognized as playing an important role in major evolutionary transitions and biodiversity. Moreover, in the last decade, a significant number of papers has been published highlighting a correlation between TE activity and exposition to environmental stresses and dietary factors. In this review we present an overview of the impact of TEs in vertebrate genomes, report the silencing mechanisms adopted by host genomes to regulate TE activity, and finally we explore the effects of environmental and dietary factor exposures on TE activity in mammals, which is the most studied group among vertebrates. The studies here reported evidence that several factors can induce changes in the epigenetic status of TEs and silencing mechanisms leading to their activation with consequent effects on the host genome. The study of TE can represent a future challenge for research for developing effective markers able to detect precocious epigenetic changes and prevent human diseases.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI

Transposable Elements and Human Diseases: Mechanisms and Implication in the Response to Environmental Pollutants

TL;DR: Improved knowledge of TEs may lead to new potential diagnostic markers of diseases, and the exposure of individuals to stresses and environmental contaminants seems to have a non-negligible impact on the epigenetic derepression and mobility ofTEs, which can lead to the development of diseases.
Journal ArticleDOI

Transposable Elements: Major Players in Shaping Genomic and Evolutionary Patterns

Nunzia Colonna Romano, +1 more
- 01 Mar 2022 - 
TL;DR: The ‘double life' of TEs is described, being both ‘parasites’ and ‘symbionts’ of the genome, and it is argued that the transposition ofTEs contributes to two important evolutionary processes: the temporal dynamic of evolution and the induction of genetic variability.
Journal ArticleDOI

Physiological mechanisms of stress-induced evolution.

TL;DR: Five key physiological mechanisms of stress-induced evolution are summarized, which rapidly generate heritable phenotypes that may be adaptive, maladaptive or neutral in specific contexts and produce phenotypic variation at the population level.
Journal ArticleDOI

Investigation of the activity of transposable elements and genes involved in their silencing in the newt Cynops orientalis, a species with a giant genome

TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed the activity of transposable elements (TEs) in the transcriptomes obtained from female and male gonads of the Chinese fire-bellied newt, Cynops orientalis, a species with a genome about 12-fold larger than the human genome.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome.

Eric S. Lander, +248 more
- 15 Feb 2001 - 
TL;DR: The results of an international collaboration to produce and make freely available a draft sequence of the human genome are reported and an initial analysis is presented, describing some of the insights that can be gleaned from the sequence.
Journal ArticleDOI

Functions of DNA methylation: islands, start sites, gene bodies and beyond

TL;DR: Improved genome-scale mapping of methylation allows us to evaluate DNA methylation in different genomic contexts: transcriptional start sites with or without CpG islands, in gene bodies, at regulatory elements and at repeat sequences.
Journal ArticleDOI

The significance of responses of the genome to challenge

TL;DR: An attempt is made to outline several experiments conducted by the author that revealed how a genome may react to conditions for which it is unprepared, but to which it responds in a discernible, but initially unforeseen manner.
Journal ArticleDOI

Transposable elements: targets for early nutritional effects on epigenetic gene regulation.

TL;DR: The results show that dietary methyl supplementation of a/a dams with extra folic acid, vitamin B12, choline, and betaine alter the phenotype of their Avy/a offspring via increased CpG methylation at the AvY locus and that the epigenetic metastability which confers this lability is due to the Avy transposable element.
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