{"doi":"10.1016/j.molcel.2023.05.013","title":"Modularity and diversity of target selectors in Tn7 transposons","abstract":"To spread, transposons must integrate into target sites without disruption of essential genes while avoiding host defense systems. Tn7-like transposons employ multiple mechanisms for target-site selection, including protein-guided targeting and, in CRISPR-associated transposons (CASTs), RNA-guided targeting. Combining phylogenomic and structural analyses, we conducted a broad survey of target selectors, revealing diverse mechanisms used by Tn7 to recognize target sites, including previously uncharacterized target-selector proteins found in newly discovered transposable elements (TEs). We experimentally characterized a CAST I-D system and a Tn6022-like transposon that uses TnsF, which contains an inactivated tyrosine recombinase domain, to target the comM gene. Additionally, we identified a non-Tn7 transposon, Tsy, encoding a homolog of TnsF with an active tyrosine recombinase domain, which we show also inserts into comM. Our findings show that Tn7 transposons employ modular architecture and co-opt target selectors from various sources to optimize target selection and drive transposon spread.","journal":"Molecular Cell","year":2023,"id":324310,"datarank":0.5333022092234121,"base_score":3.5553480614894135,"endowment":3.5553480614894135,"self_citation_contribution":0.5333022092234121,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.5333022092234121,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":34,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9512,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":108329,"name":"Makoto Saito","orcid":"0000-0001-8619-5176","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":260662,"name":"Sean Benler","orcid":"0000-0001-7985-1294","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1040991,"name":"Iris Peng","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":107326,"name":"Yuri I. Wolf","orcid":"0000-0002-0247-8708","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":61687,"name":"Jonathan Strecker","orcid":"0000-0001-8953-5615","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":75660,"name":"Han Altae-Tran","orcid":"0000-0003-1083-4802","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":628568,"name":"Edwin N. Neumann","orcid":"0000-0003-4341-9816","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":61663,"name":"David Li","orcid":"0000-0002-8921-5168","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":50943,"name":"Kira S. Makarova","orcid":"0000-0002-8174-2844","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":7481,"name":"Rhiannon K. Macrae","orcid":"0000-0002-7850-9056","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":17837,"name":"Eugene V. Koonin","orcid":"0000-0003-3943-8299","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":7482,"name":"Feng Zhang","orcid":"0000-0002-7444-1103","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":108334,"name":"Guilhem Faure","orcid":"0000-0001-9537-2277","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":72,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:08:11.275604Z","pmid":"37267947","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}