Abstract 2151 Mutations in the Reverse Transcriptase and Thumb of R2Bm Proteins and Their Impact on Nucleic Acid Binding

Have you ever wondered what causes diseases like hemophilia, muscular dystrophy, or even cancer? The culprit may be lying in your genome: Transposable elements (TEs) are genetic elements that replicate and move positions within a host genome. Over 50% of the human genome is the result of TE activity. Studying how these elements insert into host DNA will lead to a greater understanding of both genome dynamics and potentially how to engineer TEs to edit genomes. R2 elements are a clade of site specific long interspersed nuclear elements (LINEs).