A team of researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona published a study showing that transposons can silence genes adjacent to or significantly reduce its expression by induction of synthesis of an antisense RNA. This new mechanism is now described, unknown until now, has been observed in the genome of Drosophila buzzatii. In the human genome sequences corresponding to transposons may account for up to 45% of genetic material.

The work discussed is the extension of some previous studies by this group of the Department of Genetics and Microbiology at the UAB, which earned them a 1999 article in Science, which showed that the activity of the transposon generated a chromosomal inversion in D. Buzzatii,