Real-Time Tracking and Quantification of Transposible Element Activity

Transposable elements (TEs), or jumping genes, are DNA sequences that can change their position in a genome using a cut-and-paste or copy-and-paste mechanism. They are fundamental building blocks of all genomes, accounting for large fractions of genomic masses, and may have played a major role in the emergence of biological structure, diversity and function. Even so, many open questions remain regarding their differential abundance among organisms, the functions of their proteins, rates of activity and transposition and their effects on their hosts. Traditional techniques for measuring TE activity rely on endpoint or periodic population samplings that require activity rates to be interpreted through models of population growth that may not be correct. We overcome these limitations by making real time observations of protein expression and transposition events as they occur in living cells through high resolution fluorescence visualization and quantification techniques. Based on our measurements, we shed light on the differential abundance of TEs and their rates of activity.

This work was supported by startup funds from the University of California, Riverside, the NSF Center for the Physics of Living Cells, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the NASA Astrobiology Institute.