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Smuggling route for cells protects DNA from parasites

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Geekz Snow
Smuggling route for cells protects DNA from parasites

While information for the production of our cells' proteins constitutes less than two percent of our DNA, two-thirds of our DNA consists of selfish genetic elements such as retroviruses and tranposons and residues thereof.

But unrestrained transposon proliferation makes the genome unstable and results in low fertility in both Drosophila, mice and humans.

Assistant Professor Peter Refsing Andersen has just started building his own group at the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Aarhus University, after having worked as a postdoc in Vienna for five years.

Together with colleagues in Senior Scientist Julius Brennecke's group at the Vienna BioCenter, Peter has now found the answer to one of the big open questions in understanding how the defence mechanisms against transposons work.

The defence, which can shut down transposons, is guided by small RNA molecules, the so-called piRNAs.

piRNAs are made in the cell from long RNA molecules that, after being produced within the cell nucleus, have to travel into the cytoplasm of specific piRNA production regions.

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Geekz Snow
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