ReviewMolecular biology and evolution2013
Exaptation of transposable elements into novel cis-regulatory elements: is the evidence always strong?
Review in Molecular biology and evolution, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 79 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
79 citing papers in PubMed, 167 citations in OpenAlex.
- Regulatory Evolution and the Genetic Basis of Human Brain Expansion.Journal of molecular evolution · 2026Review
- Gene regulatory innovations from transposable elements in primate cerebellum development.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Replication Rate-Information Storage Trade-Off Shapes Genome Architecture Across Domains.Journal of molecular evolution · 2026Article
- Architectural and evolutionary features of TE-derived TSSs shape tissue-specific promoter activity in the human genome.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Transposable elements as a possible missing link between genetic predisposition and environmental triggers of autoimmune disorders: insights from type 1 diabetes, systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- The latent cis-regulatory potential of mobile DNA in Escherichia coli.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Gag proteins encoded by endogenous retroviruses are required for zebrafish development.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Tandemly duplicated Rubisco activase genes of cereals show differential evolution and response to heat stress.Plant molecular biology · 2024Article
- Natural Transposable Element Insertions Contribute to Host Fitness in Model Yeasts.Genome biology and evolution · 2024Article
- Gapped-kmer sequence modeling robustly identifies regulatory vocabularies and distal enhancers conserved between evolutionarily distant mammals.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Systematic single-cell analysis reveals dynamic control of transposable element activity orchestrating the endothelial-to-hematopoietic transition.BMC biology · 2024Article
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- The Initial Hepatitis B Virus-Hepatocyte Genomic Integrations and Their Role in Hepatocellular Oncogenesis.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
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- Ongoing endeavors to detect mobilization of transposable elements.BMB reports · 2022Review
- Review
- A comprehensive annotation dataset of intact LTR retrotransposons of 300 plant genomes.Scientific data · 2021Article
- Role of Transposable Elements in Gene Regulation in the Human Genome.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
19 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Transposable elements (TEs) are mobile genetic sequences that can jump around the genome from one location to another, behaving as genomic parasites. TEs have been particularly effective in colonizing mammalian genomes, and such heavy TE load is expected to have conditioned genome evolution. Indeed, studies conducted both at the gene and genome levels have uncovered TE insertions that seem to have been co-opted--or exapted--by providing transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs) that serve as promoters and enhancers, leading to the hypothesis that TE exaptation is a major factor in the evolution of gene regulation. Here, we critically review the evidence for exaptation of TE-derived sequences as TFBSs, promoters, enhancers, and silencers/insulators both at the gene and genome levels. We classify the functional impact attributed to TE insertions into four categories of increasing complexity and argue that so far very few studies have conclusively demonstrated exaptation of TEs as transcriptional regulatory regions. We also contend that many genome-wide studies dealing with TE exaptation in recent lineages of mammals are still inconclusive and that the hypothesis of rapid transcriptional regulatory rewiring mediated by TE mobilization must be taken with caution. Finally, we suggest experimental approaches that may help attributing higher-order functions to candidate exapted TEs.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.