Abstract
Mobile genetic elements are widespread in almost all living organisms. This chapter will focus on insertion sequence (IS) elements, which are bacterial mobile genetic elements carrying genetic information devoted to their transposition and its regulation [1]. IS elements, and more generally mobile genetic elements, were first discovered by their ability to generate mutations [2, 3], and several studies suggested their significant contribution to spontaneous mutagenesis in bacteria [4, 5]. Transposition of an IS element can result in gene inactivation, polar effects [6, 7], activation of cryptic genes, and modification of gene expression (for review, see [1]). Besides these “simple” transposition events, IS elements can be involved in global restructuring of genomes, through homologous recombination events between homologous copies. Chromosomal rearrangements such as inversions, deletions, and duplications have been described [8, 9].
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