Transposable Elements are expressed in the C. elegans early embryo and involved in his development, but they might also have an impact on pathologies and neurodegenerative diseases.

Transposable Elements (TE) are mobile sequences present throughout the genome. Their involvement in physiological and pathological processes needs to be clarified but appears to be related. This work of Federico Ansaloni et al. is about the expression and regulation of TE during different stages of embryogenesis.

They highlight TE transcription regulation in this model, even if its low, different TE are expressed in different cell types and stages, suggesting functions during early embryo development.

Abstract: “Transposable Elements (TE) are mobile sequences that make up large portions of eukaryote genomes. The functions they play within the complex cellular architecture are still not clearly understood, but it is becoming evident that TE have a role in several physiological and pathological processes. In particular, it has been shown that TE transcription is necessary for the correct development of mice embryos and that their expression is able to finely modulate transcription of coding and non-coding genes. Moreover, their activity in the central nervous system (CNS) and other tissues has been correlated with the creation of somatic mosaicisms and with pathologies such as neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases as well as cancers.”

Reference: https://bmcbioinformatics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12859-019-3088-7?_scpsug=bookmarked,2121002#Abs1