{"id":42205,"date":"2025-04-19T12:40:41","date_gmt":"2025-04-19T07:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=42205"},"modified":"2025-05-28T12:42:53","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T07:12:53","slug":"jumping-genes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/jumping-genes\/","title":{"rendered":"Jumping Genes"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Jumping Genes Latest News<\/h2>\n<p>Recent research by University of Texas (UT) Health San Antonio has found that transposon activation may be a key factor in the progression of Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n<h2>Jumping Genes and Alzheimer\u2019s<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Jumping genes<\/strong>, scientifically known as\u00a0<strong>transposons<\/strong>, are\u00a0<strong>mobile genetic elements<\/strong>\u00a0that can\u00a0<strong>move from one location to another<\/strong>\u00a0within the genome. They were first discovered by\u00a0<strong>Barbara McClintock<\/strong>, who won the Nobel Prize in 1983 for this work.<\/li>\n<li>In humans,\u00a0<strong>transposons make up nearly 50% of the genome<\/strong>, and while most are inactive, some retain the ability to\u00a0<strong>\u201cjump\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0and cause\u00a0<strong>genomic instability<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The most common type of jumping genes is\u00a0<strong>retrotransposons<\/strong>, especially\u00a0<strong>LINE-1 elements<\/strong>, which replicate through an\u00a0<strong>RNA intermediate<\/strong>\u00a0and use\u00a0<strong>reverse transcriptase<\/strong>\u00a0to reintegrate into DNA.<\/li>\n<li>Normally, the activity of these elements is\u00a0<strong>tightly controlled<\/strong>\u00a0by the body through\u00a0<strong>epigenetic mechanisms<\/strong>, but in aging or diseased brains, especially in\u00a0<strong>neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer\u2019s<\/strong>, these controls can\u00a0<strong>weaken<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Once activated, transposons can\u00a0<strong>insert themselves into essential genes<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>disrupt DNA sequences<\/strong>, and lead to\u00a0<strong>cellular damage<\/strong>, especially in the brain\u2019s\u00a0<strong>neurons<\/strong>, which are non-dividing and highly vulnerable.<\/li>\n<li>In experiments with\u00a0<strong>genetically modified fruit flies<\/strong>\u00a0that mimic Alzheimer\u2019s symptoms, blocking transposon activity using an\u00a0<strong>HIV drug (3TC)<\/strong>\u00a0led to\u00a0<strong>improvements in neural function<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>3TC<\/strong>\u00a0is a\u00a0<strong>reverse transcriptase inhibitor<\/strong>, which prevents retrotransposons from\u00a0<strong>copying and inserting<\/strong>\u00a0themselves into new parts of the genome.<\/li>\n<li>In a\u00a0<strong>clinical trial<\/strong>\u00a0with human patients, 3TC did not directly improve memory but\u00a0<strong>reduced neurofilament light (NfL)<\/strong>\u2014a key\u00a0<strong>biomarker of neurodegeneration<\/strong>\u2014suggesting\u00a0<strong>protection against neuronal damage<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>This supports a new hypothesis: Alzheimer\u2019s disease may not just be a disorder of protein aggregation (like amyloid or tau), but also one of\u00a0<strong>genomic instability<\/strong>\u00a0caused by the\u00a0<strong>reactivation of jumping genes<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/content\/article\/blocking-jumping-genes-help-fight-disease-aging\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">SC<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jumping genes, or transposons, are DNA sequences that move within the genome, potentially disrupting gene function or regulation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":42206,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[192,21,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-42205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-jumping-genes","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","11":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}