Retro active

A study from a an international team has found that induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells and embryonic stem cells can alter their genotypes and phenotypes by mobilizing endogenous retrotransposons. Although the results raise caveats for using the cells in therapeutics, the researchers believe monitoring or modulating the elements could offset most of the concerns.

Retrotransposons are mobile DNA elements that can copy and paste themselves across the genome. They operate by encoding a reverse transcriptase that converts the RNA transcript they were made from into a new DNA sequence, which is then inserted in a new genomic location...