Retroposons

DNA bits called retroposons reveal that marsupials share a South American ancestor but form distinct South American and Australian groups. ❋ Unknown (2010)

These repeats and segmental duplications occur by means of many different mechanisms, one of which involves sporadic and repeated insertions of short bits of genetic material, called retroposons, into the genome.

Deininger PL, Efstratiadis A (1986) Nonviral retroposons: genes, pseudogenes, and trans - posable elements generated by the reverse flow of genetic information. ❋ Hong-Da Chen Et Al. (2010)

Unlike the rest of the genetic code, which is subject to mutations and other random events that can make analysis difficult, retroposons and their locations are predictable and stable after the copy and paste. ❋ Unknown (2010)

Germany and colleagues began looking for weird bits of DNA called retroposons. ❋ Unknown (2010)

That opossums lacked two nearly universal retroposons may indicate that they are the closest, genetically speaking, to the marsupial ancestor, Nilsson says. ❋ Unknown (2010)

All marsupials shared the same 10 retroposons, confirming that they all share ❋ Unknown (2010)

That makes them a more reliable marker for determining relationships between animals; if two species have the same retroposons in the same spots, they probably share a common ancestor. ❋ Unknown (2010)

The Muenster researchers looked for DNA elements called retroposons. ❋ Unknown (2010)

When exactly this happened is still unknown, as this kind of analysis does not show when in evolutionary time the retroposons were inserted. ❋ Unknown (2010)