What is "helitron"

n. 1 (context physics English) A tunable form of microwave oscillator 2 (context biology English) A transposon found in eukaryotes

Helitron is a mixed choir operating in Tallinn and originally set up to cater to employees of Tondi Elektroonika. Of the employment-related choirs established during Soviet occupation of Estonia, Helitron was one of the most famous ones, and is one of the few ones who have outlived the USSR.

A number of people who participated in the Singing Revolution in musical rôles have at some point in their life been involved with Helitron, as either a singer in it, or as a conductor or arranger.

Helitrons are one of the three groups of eukaryotic class 2 transposable elements (TEs) so far described. They are the eukaryotic rolling-circle transposable elements which are hypothesized to transpose by a rolling circle replication mechanism via a single-stranded DNA intermediate. They were first discovered in plants ( Arabidopsis thaliana and Oryza sativa) and in the nematode Caenorhabditis Elegans, and now they have been identified in a diverse range of species, from protists to mammals. Helitrons make up a substantial fraction of many genomes where non-autonomous elements frequently outnumber the putative autonomous partner. Helitrons seem to have a major role in the evolution of host genomes. They frequently capture diverse host genes, some of which can evolve into novel host genes or become essential for Helitron transposition.