Dispersal of an ancient retroposon in the TP53 promoter of Bovidae: phylogeny, novel mechanisms, and potential implications for cow milk persistency.

Background In recent years, the perception of transposable genetic elements has changed from “junk DNA” to a focus of interest when appearing near or inside genes. Bov-A2 is a short interspersed nuclear element (SINE) that was first found in Bovidae and later in other ruminants. This retroposon is mostly used as a marker for phylogenetic analysis.