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Nature 398, 108-111 (11 March 1999) | doi:10.1038/18118

Genome structure:  Retroshuffling the genomic deck

Jef D. Boeke1 & Oxana K. Pickeral2

The shape of modern genomes reflects evolutionary forces that have operated on them for millions of years. According to the exon-shuffling hypothesis, which was first suggested in these pages over 20 years ago1, new genes are assembled from chunks of old ones.