Keywords: group-i introns

Homing endonuclease genes: the rise and fall and rise again of a selfish element

Burt, AK, V.,  Current Opinion in Genetics & Development,  14:609-615. 2004.
Homing endonuclease genes (HEGs) are selfish genetic elements that spread by first cleaving chromosomes that do not contain them and then getting copied across to the broken chromosome as a byproduct of the repair process. The success of this strategy will depend on the ...
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Adaptation for horizontal transfer in a homing endonuclease

Koufopanou, VG, M. R.; Burt, A.,  Molecular Biology and Evolution,  19:239-246. 2002.
Selfish genes of no function other than self-propagation are susceptible to degeneration if they become fixed in a population. and regular transfer to new species may be the only means for their long-term persistence. To test this idea we surveyed 24 species of yeast for VDE, a ...
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Recurrent invasion and extinction of a selfish gene

Goddard, MRB, A.,  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America,  96:13880-13885. 1999.
Homing endonuclease genes show super-Mendelian inheritance, which allows them to spread in populations even when they are of no benefit to the host organism. To test the idea that regular horizontal transmission is necessary for the long-term persistence of these genes, we ...
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