Like its viral cousins, a somewhat parasitic DNA sequence called a retrotransposon has been found borrowing the cell’s own machinery to achieve its goals.
In a new work appearing online Wednesday in the journal Nature, a Duke University team has determined that retrotransposons hijack a little-known piece of the cell’s DNA repair function to close themselves into a ring-like shape and then create a matching double strand.
The finding upends 40 years of conventional wisdom saying these rings were just a useless by-product of bad gene copying. It may also offer new insights into cancer, viral infections and immune responses.
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