|Mechanisms of DNA transposition

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Abstract
All organisms studied in any detail have been found to contain transposons, discrete segments of DNA that can move within genomes. Transposons can be viewed as molecular parasites, the smallest units of selection: single (or a few) genes that move around by using all functions of the host (building blocks, energy, the replication apparatus), and that only provide the factors that are needed for the recognition of the border between themselves and their host DNA, and for the initiation of events that result in their own spread within the host genome. The only necessary explanation for their existence is that they have survived, but this does not exclude the possibility that, like many other parasites, transposons could be anywhere on the scale between parasitism and symbiosis, and thus be for their hosts either a nuisance, or an indispensable helper, or both.

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