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  • RESEARCH BRIEFINGS

Genetic ‘parasites’ hijack a DNA-repair pathway to form circular DNA and replicate

Retrotransposons are sequences of DNA in animal genomes that can replicate and reinsert themselves back into the genome. Experiments in flies and other model systems reveal that retrotransposons ‘hijack’ a DNA-repair pathway in host cells to produce circular DNA, enabling their replication and subsequent reinsertion into the genome.

This is a summary of: Yang, F. et al. Retrotransposons hijack alt-EJ for DNA replication and eccDNA biogenesis. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06327-7 (2023).

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02108-4

‘Expert opinion’ is published under a CC BY 4.0 licence.

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