Level of life
DNA
The molecule that stores the genetic instructions of all cellular life: two strands wound into a double helix and held together by base pairs.
Transposable elements
Stretches of DNA that can move to new places in the genome, first described by Barbara McClintock in maize.Source: McClintock, 1950
Also called jumping genes, transposons.
Molecule
How Transposable elements connects
Transposable elements is part of
Transposable elements can cause
Process
Mutation
A change in a DNA sequence. Mutations arise from copying errors or damage, and their effects range from none at all to disease.
Studied in
Your progress
Sources & further reading
The explanations on this page are our own summaries of these sources. Follow a link to read the original; if anything here disagrees with it, the original wins. How we choose and check sources.
The origin and behavior of mutable loci in maize (opens the original in a new tab)
McClintock B (1950). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 36:344-355.
Description of transposable genetic elements.
Historical paperPrimary research