AbstractAluelements are a family of short interspersed repetitive elements (SINEs) found exclusively in primates. These elements are around 300 base pairs long, are found in excess of one million copies per diploid genome, and are dispersed throughout the human genome.Aluelements are scattered by a mechanism called “retrotransposition”. Three independent steps are involved in retrotransposition: transcription of theAlurepetitive element, reverse transcription of theAluRNA and integration of theAlucDNA. The fact thatAluelements retrotranspose so readily suggests that they have a myriad of effects on the genome, mostly by inactivating genes or altering their function. These characteristics ofAlurepetitive elements point to these repetitive DNA fragments as a major driving force for evolution. In addition,Aluelements are known to adopt diverse functions depending on the context of the surrounding genetic material into which they insert. In this article, we review some of the evidence that demonstrates the functional significance ofAlurepe