TY - JOUR T1 - The RAG transposon is active through the deuterostome evolution and domesticated in jawed vertebrates JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/100735 SP - 100735 AU - Jose Ricardo Morales Poole AU - Sheng Feng Huang AU - Anlong Xu AU - Justine Bayet AU - Pierre Pontarotti Y1 - 2017/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/03/17/100735.abstract N2 - RAG1 and RAG2 are essential subunits of the V(D)J recombinase required for the generation of the variability of antibodies and T-cell receptors in jawed vertebrates. It was demonstrated that the amphioxus homologue of RAG1-RAG2 is encoded in an active transposon, belonging to the transposase DDE superfamily. The data provided supports to the possibility that the RAG transposon has been active through the deuterostome evolution and is still active in several lineages. The RAG transposon corresponds to several families present in deuterostomes. RAG1-RAG2 V(D)J recombinase evolved from one of them, partially due to the new ability of the transposon to interact with the cellular reparation machinery. Considering the fact that the RAG transposon survived millions of years in many different lineages, in multiple copies, and that DDE transposases evolved their association with proteins involved in repair mechanisms, we propose that the apparition of V(D)J recombination machinery could be a predictable genetic event. ER -