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Welcome to TnPedia, the TnCentral Wiki

TnCentral is a Web-resource for prokaryotic transposons, their passenger genes, and their host organisms. It provides a variety of Search functions, BLAST functions for TnCentral and other related databases and a summary page with detailed annotation and a descriptive graphic for each transposon. It also makes available stand-alone scripts for identifying different transposons in genomic sequence data.

This Tnpedia has been written in an attempt to assemble a body of information (including many of the historical articles) generally dispersed in the literature as an aid to understanding how knowledge has been built up to our present view of the key role played by transposable elements (TE) in prokaryotes – both in influencing gene expression, in driving genome evolution and in facilitating horizontal gene transfer (HGT). It is divided into three sections:

General Information 

A section providing general information about transposition and transposable elements (TE) with emphasis on prokaryotic elements. It was originally written for ISfinder (https://www-is.biotoul.fr/index.php) with contributions from P. Siguier and E. Gourbeyre. It contains historical, mechanistic and genetic information.

IS Families 

A second section describing each IS family in some detail. This section has been entirely updated compared to that which was included in a previous ISfinder version. It contains information from a number of reviews and from the primary literature together with analyses undertaken in the framework of ISfinder and TnCentral. P. Siguier and E. Gourbeyre provided a large proportion of these analyses.

[In progress] 

A third section presenting detailed descriptions of transposon and transposon families written in the framework of TnCentral.

All sections will be updated periodically here but can also be accessed through TnCentral.

Acknowledgments: The entries in this Transposopaedia have been written by Michael Chandler with contributions from Patricia Siguier and Edith Gourbeyre. Alessandro M. Varani and Danillo O. Alvarenga coded and designed the website and edited the original material.