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How jumping genes were discovered

Nature Structural Biology volume 8, pages 300–301 (2001)Cite this article

The discovery of transposition can be dated quite precisely from comments penned in Barbara McClintock's hand on an unpublished manuscript from January of 1949. Seeking to explain the behavior of a chromosome breaking site she named the Dissociation (Ds) locus, McClintock says: “At the time, I did not know that Ds could change its location. Realization of this did not enter my consciousness until late this spring, following the harvest of the greenhouse crop”1. The spring was that of 1948 and the greenhouse crop was grown in the winter 1947–1948.

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References

  1. McClintock, B. The discovery and characterization of transposable elements. The collected papers of Barbara McClintock. (Garland, New York;1987).

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  2. Emerson, R. A. Am. Nat. 48, 87–115 (1914).

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  3. Rhoades, M. M. Cold Spring Harbor Symp. Quant. Biol. 9, 138–144 (1941).

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  1. Life Sciences Consortium and Biotechnology Institute,

    Nina Fedoroff

  2. Biology Department, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802, USA

    Nina Fedoroff

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  1. Nina Fedoroff
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Fedoroff, N. How jumping genes were discovered. Nat Struct Mol Biol 8, 300–301 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/86161

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