Siddharth Gopalan / Biology / Faculty Mentor: Todd Castoe
hAT-Tip100 transposable elements (TEs) are known to have been co-opted as regulatory loci (i.e., promoters and enhancers) for the snake venom serine protease (SVSP) gene family in a single viper species1. This is notable because TEs are sequences that are usually silenced after insertion to protect against their many deleterious effects (e.g., disruption of normal gene regulation or protein-coding potential, ectopic recombination etc.). However, the process by which a normally silenced element becomes one that has a defined regulatory role is not well understood. Here, we leverage functional and comparative genomics applied to the hAT-Tip100 SVSP gene regulatory system of rattlesnakes to understand the genomic drivers of TE-driven regulatory element evolution.
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