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Fig. 4 | Mobile DNA

Fig. 4

From: Endogenous retroviral promoter exaptation in human cancer

Fig. 4

De-repression model for onco-exaptation. In the normal or pre-malignant state TEs (grey triangles) are largely silenced across the genome. There is low transcriptional activity to produce long non-coding RNA (orange box), or express coding genes in the case of evolutionary exaptations (not shown). The example proto-oncogene (green box) is under the regulatory control of its native, restrictive promoter. During the process of transformation and/or oncogenesis, a change in the molecular state of the cell occurs leading to loss of TE repressors (black circles), i.e. DNA hypomethylation, loss of transcriptional or epigenetic repressive factors. The change could also be accompanied by a change/gain in activating factor activities (red and purple shapes). Together these de-repression events result in higher TE promoter activity (orange triangles) and more TE-derived transcripts based on the factors that become deregulated. Oncogenic activation of proto-oncogenes is a consequence of a particular molecular milieu that arises in the cancerous cells

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