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Cancer biology

Sleeping Beauty awakens

Nature volume 436, pages 184–185 (2005)Cite this article

Ancient jumping DNA found napping in fish has been revived and is being used to identify cancer genes in mice. But the benefits of this aptly named ‘Sleeping Beauty’ system could reach far beyond cancer.

Transposable elements are discrete pieces of DNA that can jump around in the genome of a living organism. These elements were initially discovered in corn through the Nobel-prize-winning work of Barbara McClintock1, and they have been found in organisms throughout the tree of life. For each DNA transposon, a corresponding protein, called a transposase, mediates the jumping. One such transposon/transposase duo, aptly named Sleeping Beauty (SB), was found latent in the genome of salmonid fish. Its DNA sequence had mutated to the point where it no longer jumped, but rather slumbered as inactive ‘junk DNA’. The extinct SB jumping functions have been resurrected2, and in this issue Dupuy et al. (page 221)3 and Collier et al. (page 272)4 present improvements to this technology and exploit the system to identify genes involved in cancer.

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Figure 1: DNA leaps out of fish and into cancer research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza S413, Houston, 77030, Texas, USA

    Keith C. Weiser & Monica J. Justice

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  1. Keith C. Weiser
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  2. Monica J. Justice
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Weiser, K., Justice, M. Sleeping Beauty awakens. Nature 436, 184–185 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/436184a

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