ArticleBMC biology2014
Casposons: a new superfamily of self-synthesizing DNA transposons at the origin of prokaryotic CRISPR-Cas immunity.
Article in BMC biology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 119 papers.
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119 citing papers in PubMed, 187 citations in OpenAlex.
- A noncontiguous code for RNA-guided DNA recognition at the origin of CRISPR-Cas.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2026Article
- CRISPR rewired: from adaptive immunity to a global virulence control network in Salmonella.World journal of microbiology & biotechnology · 2026Review
- Comprehensive profiling of insertion sequences and eukaryotic-like transposons across archaeal genomes.BMC genomics · 2026Article
- Structures reveal how the Cas1-2/3 integrase captures, delivers, and integrates foreign DNA into CRISPR loci.Structure (London, England : 1993) · 2025Article
- A Small RNA Derived From the 5' End of the IS200 tnpA Transcript Regulates Multiple Virulence Regulons in Salmonella typhimurium.Molecular microbiology · 2025Article
- Beyond plasmid addiction: the role of toxin-antitoxin systems in the selfish behavior of mobile genetic elements.Journal of bacteriology · 2025Review
- How and when organisms edit their own genomes.Nature genetics · 2025Review
- Nitrosarchaeum haohaiensis sp. Nov. CL1Environmental microbiology reports · 2025Article
- Enrichment of horizontally transferred gene clusters in bacterial extracellular vesicles via non lytic mechanisms.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- Pipolins are bimodular platforms that maintain a reservoir of defense systems exchangeable with various bacterial genetic mobile elements.Nucleic acids research · 2024Article
- Diverse viral cas genes antagonize CRISPR immunity.Nature · 2024Article
- Human cytomegalovirus harnesses host L1 retrotransposon for efficient replication.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Article
- Natural history of eukaryotic DNA viruses with double jelly-roll major capsid proteins.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Advances and applications of CRISPR/Cas-mediated interference inEngineering microbiology · 2024Review
- Mixed waste contamination selects for a mobile genetic element population enriched in multiple heavy metal resistance genes.ISME communications · 2024Article
- Emergence of RNA-guided transcription factors via domestication of transposon-encoded TnpB nucleases.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Article
- Active in vivo translocation of the Methanosarcina mazei Gö1 Casposon.Nucleic acids research · 2023Article
- Transposon-encoded nucleases use guide RNAs to selfishly bias their inheritance.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
59 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundDiverse transposable elements are abundant in genomes of cellular organisms from all three domains of life. Although transposons are often regarded as junk DNA, a growing body of evidence indicates that they are behind some of the major evolutionary innovations. With the growth in the number and diversity of sequenced genomes, previously unnoticed mobile elements continue to be discovered.
resultsWe describe a new superfamily of archaeal and bacterial mobile elements which we denote casposons because they encode Cas1 endonuclease, a key enzyme of the CRISPR-Cas adaptive immunity systems of archaea and bacteria. The casposons share several features with self-synthesizing eukaryotic DNA transposons of the Polinton/Maverick class, including terminal inverted repeats and genes for B family DNA polymerases. However, unlike any other known mobile elements, the casposons are predicted to rely on Cas1 for integration and excision, via a mechanism similar to the integration of new spacers into CRISPR loci. We identify three distinct families of casposons that differ in their gene repertoires and evolutionary provenance of the DNA polymerases. Deep branching of the casposon-encoded endonuclease in the Cas1 phylogeny suggests that casposons played a pivotal role in the emergence of CRISPR-Cas immunity.
conclusionsThe casposons are a novel superfamily of mobile elements, the first family of putative self-synthesizing transposons discovered in prokaryotes. The likely contribution of capsosons to the evolution of CRISPR-Cas parallels the involvement of the RAG1 transposase in vertebrate immunoglobulin gene rearrangement, suggesting that recruitment of endonucleases from mobile elements as ready-made tools for genome manipulation is a general route of evolution of adaptive immunity.
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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.