Abstract: Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) as emerging environmental pollutants have become the focus of attention of many disciplines. The transmission and dissemination of ARGs in various environmental media has great hazards to environment and poses serious threat to human health. ISCR (insertion sequence common regions) elements are newly discovered resistance genes transmission elements. Because of the special genetic structure, ISCR elements can move any adjacent DNA sequences by rollingcircle replication and homologous recombination, and have become the efficient transmission elements of ARGs among different DNA molecules or bacterial species. Around the world, 27 members of the ISCR family have been discovered up to now. A lot of circumstantial evidence has indicated that ISCR elements may be associated with the mobility and transmission of kinds of ARGs, especially multiple drug resistance genes (MDR). In this review, we described some aspects of ISCR elements, including the horizontal transfer of ARGs, structural characteristics of ISCRs, classification of ISCRs and their related ARGs, research methods of these elements, possible ecological risk of ISCRs and proposal of research directions, hoping to provide help for further related research in the future.