ABSTRACT
A wave of new scientific discoveries has considerably challenged the view that transposable elements (TEs) are only selfish sequences parasiting the genome of living organisms. Transposable elements are major constituents of most eukaryotic genomes. For example, over 40% of the human genome consists of TEs, most of them being retrotransposable elements. Transposable elements are important factors for the formation and evolution of heterochromatin and for the epigenetic regulation of host genes and are target for cytosine methylation. TEs are generally not distributed randomly within genomes. Antarctic teleosts from the suborder Notothenioidei are a group of species in which the genomic localization of TEs has been investigated through cytogenetic analysis. The localization of a mobile element within particular genomic regions or sequences can be due, for instance, to a more or less stringent preference for certain target sites. Within vertebrates, transposable elements have been well characterized in human and other mammals.
