Any sequence in the genome might become an IS element, being therefore these elements randomly selected throughout the chromosome. A copy of the transposon is made and inserted at any position in the head of a gene, except the first position. The transposition operator randomly chooses the chromosome, the start of the IS element, the target site, and the length of the transposon.

Consider the following two-genic chromosome:

Suppose that the sequence ‘a+Q’ in gene 1 (positions 3-5) was randomly chosen to become an IS element and transpose between positions 2-3 in gene 2, obtaining:

Note that, on the one hand, the sequence of the transposon becomes duplicated but, on the other, a sequence with as many symbols as the IS element was deleted at the end of the head of the target gene (in this case the sequence ‘-/a’ was deleted. Thus, despite the insertion, the structural organization of chromosomes is maintained, and therefore all the new individuals created by transposition are syntactically correct programs.