Nearly fifty years after a landmark paper proposed the existence of what later came to be called jumping genes, scientists are getting their first clear snapshot of one caught in midleap. The transposition of DNA is central to genetics and evolution.
Transposable elements are an important source of the mutations on which natural selection operates.
Scientists estimate that transposable elements make up as much as 30 percent of the human genome, for example. In Science, the Wisconsin team describes the 3-dimensional structure of the Escherischia coli Tn5 transposase bound to the Tn5 transposable element. Researchers have now studied the catalytic core of five different transposases and integrases, and they show remarkable similarity. Therefore, a clear image of one of them provides greater understanding of all similar ones. To control AIDS, researchers in the pharmaceutical industry are screening compounds that can inhibit HIV-1 integrase, according to Rayment and Reznikoff.