Replicative transposition is a mechanism of transposition in

molecular biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and phys ...

, proposed by

James A. Shapiro James Alan Shapiro (born May 18, 1943) is an American biologist, an expert in bacterial genetics and a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Chicago. Academic biography Shapiro obtained his Bachelor ...

in 1979, in which the

transposable element A transposable element (TE, transposon, or jumping gene) is a nucleic acid sequence in DNA that can change its position within a genome, sometimes creating or reversing mutations and altering the cell's genetic identity and genome size. Trans ...

is duplicated during the reaction, so that the transposing entity is a copy of the original element. In this mechanism, the donor and receptor DNA sequences form a characteristic intermediate "theta" configuration, sometimes called a "Shapiro intermediate". Replicative transposition is characteristic to

retrotransposon Retrotransposons (also called Class I transposable elements or transposons via RNA intermediates) are a type of genetic component that copy and paste themselves into different genomic locations (transposon) by converting RNA back into DNA through ...

s and occurs from time to time in class II transposons..

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Replicative Transposition Mobile genetic elements