Transposable elements, or "jumping genes", were first identified by Barbara McClintock more than 50 years ago. Why are transposons so common in eukaryotes, and exactly what do they do? In addition ...

For decades, scientists dismissed transposable elements, also known as transposons or “jumping genes”, as useless “junk DNA”. But are they really? The early speculations of both McClintock ...

Transposable elements (TEs), the so-called "jumping genes," are seldom studied due to computational difficulties. Nonetheless, in recent years, there has been an increase in studies focused on the ...

Jumping genes More than half of the genome is made up of transposons, which are small pieces of DNA that "jump around" within the genome and, hence, may appear in any number of places within it.

This big chunk of DNA contained multiple copies of a transposable element, or jumping gene. Transposable elements are viruslike pieces of DNA that copy and insert themselves into a host’s DNA.