Involvement of retrotransposon L1 in stemness and cellular plasticity.

Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) as well as the reverse process, mesenchymal-to-epithelial transition (MET) is important during embryogenesis. EMT is also involved in cancer invasion and metastasis, and can generate cells with properties similar to those of stem cells. Retrotransposons can rearrange the genome by inserting DNA in new loci, thus inducing mutations.