Episode 66: The Gene That Refused to Sit Still

There is a gene in you that was supposed to have retired. It learned a job in the brain, the kind of job a settled gene is allowed to keep, and then it refused to sit down. Most of the old movers in the human genome are fossils. This one kept the knife.

The gene is called BC200. It is expressed mainly in neurons. It began, millions of years ago, as a transposon, one of the mobile pieces of DNA we still call jumping genes. Genes that come from that kind of ancestry usually lose the ability to move once evolution puts them to work. BC200 did not. Cornell researchers found copies of it inside a human poxvirus, and the paper that followed says the movement never really stopped.

SOURCES

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/10/261002080013.htm

https://www.sciencealert.com/dna-from-a-human-brain-gene-has-turned-up-in-a-virus

https://www.technologynetworks.com/genomics/news/never-seen-before-type-of-human-jumping-gene-found-in-poxvirus-416882

Paper: Gao, Pritham, Feschotte, Sun. Escape of the BC200 gene to a human poxvirus reveals its persistent transposition in primates. Science, 24 September 2026. DOI: 10.1126/science.aeh3441

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aeh3441