Short interspersed nuclear elements (SINEs) are non-autonomous, non-coding transposable elements (TEs) that are about 100 to 700 base pairs in length. They are a class of retrotransposons, DNA elements that amplify themselves throughout eukaryotic genomes, often through RNA intermediates. SINEs compose about 13% of the mammalian genome.
The internal regions of SINEs originate from tRNA and remain highly conserved, suggesting positive pressure to preserve structure and function of SINEs.  While SINEs are present in many species of vertebrates and invertebrates, SINEs are often lineage specific, making them useful markers of divergent evolution between species. Copy number variation and mutations in the SINE sequence make it possible to construct phylogenies based on differences in SINEs between species. SINEs are also implicated in certain types of genetic disease in humans and other eukaryotes.
In essence, short interspersed nuclear elements are genetic parasites which have evolved very early in the history of eukaryotes to utilize protein machinery within the organism as well as to co-opt the machinery from similarly parasitic genomic elements. The simplicity of these elements make them remarkably successful at persisting and amplifying (through retrotransposition)  within the genomes of eukaryotes. These "parasites" which have become ubiquitous in genomes can be very deleterious to organisms as discussed below. However, eukaryotes have been able to integrate short-interspersed nuclear elements into different signaling, metabolic and regulatory pathways and SINEs have become a great source of genetic variability. They seem to play a particularly important role in the regulation of gene expression and the creation of RNA genes. This regulation extends to chromatin re-organization and the regulation of genomic architecture. The different lineages, mutations, and activities among eukaryotes make short-interspersed nuclear elements a useful tool in phylogenetic analysis.