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Kuhlman, Thomas Selvin, Paul Goldenfeld, Nigel Cooper, Lance Lee, Jia Gloria 2019-11-26T20:33:53Z 2019-11-26T20:33:53Z 2019-07-12 2019-08 Evolution is driven by the activity of transposable elements, ‘jumping genes’ that are ubiquitous to all life forms. To study their dynamics in higher resolution, transposable elements were genetically engineered for tunable expression inside living cells, then tracked in real time using fluorescence microscopy. We show that even simple transposable element systems, such as the bacterial transposon IS608, exhibit spatial and temporal variation across a population. By quantifying these variations in transposition dynamics, we generated a model of how transposition activity levels may be a hereditary trait. We also find that the activity of the human retrotransposon LINE-1 is lethal to bacterial cell growth, and propose that transposable element activity may have played a role in the early evolution of eukaryotes. Again, by quantifying how LINE-1 expression decreases bacterial growth rate, we generated a model of retrotransposon proliferation in the genome of simple cells. To further test our hypothesis, we transferred this tunable LINE-1 system into yeast cells, and began replicating experiments in a simple single-celled eukaryote. These studies highlight the importance of quantifying variations in transposable element activity across a population, and investigate the role of transposable element activity in the emergence of complex life. Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2019-11-26 without embargo terms The student, Jia Lee, accepted the attached license on 2019-07-04 at 02:54. The student, Jia Lee, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2019-07-08 at 02:52. This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2019-07-12 at 07:56. DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #14171 on 2019-11-26 at 12:51:24 Made available in DSpace on 2019-11-26T20:33:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 LEE-DISSERTATION-2019.pdf: 9660735 bytes, checksum: 577fcc44856855a58b16656a5b97c9c1 (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4204 bytes, checksum: c20660f16f58264d265cecba3a2e0442 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2019-07-12 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105648 en Copyright 2019 Jia Lee evolution, transposable elements Observing and quantifying transposable element activity inside living cells text text Physics Physics University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Dissertation Ph.D.