This Article OPEN ACCESS ARTICLE Full Text Full Text (PDF) Drosophila 12 Genomes Supplemental Research Data All Versions of this Article: gr.6365107v1 17/12/1909    most recent Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Villasante, A. Articles by de Pablos, B. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Villasante, A. Articles by de Pablos, B. Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

12 Drosophila Genomes/Letter

Drosophila telomeric retrotransposons derived from an ancestral element that was recruited to replace telomerase

¹ Centro de Biología Molecular "Severo Ochoa" (CSIC-UAM), Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain; ² Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project, Department of Genome Sciences, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA

Drosophila telomeres do not have arrays of simple telomerase-generated G-rich repeats. Instead, Drosophila maintains its telomeres by occasional transposition of specific non-long terminal repeat (non-LTR) retrotransposons to chromosome ends. The genus Drosophila provides a superb model system for comparative telomere analysis. Here we present an evolutionary study of Drosophila telomeric elements to ascertain the significance of telomeric retrotransposons (TRs) in the maintenance of Drosophila telomeres. PCR and in silico surveys in the sibling species of Drosophila melanogaster and in more distantly related species show that multiple TRs maintain telomeres in Drosophila. In addition to TRs with two open reading frames (ORFs) capable of autonomous transposition, there are deleted telomeric retrotransposons that have lost their ORF2, which we refer to as half telomeric-retrotransposons (HTRs). The phylogenetic relationship among these telomeric elements is congruent with the phylogeny of the species, suggesting that they have been vertically inherited from a common ancestor. Our results suggest that an existing non-LTR retrotransposon was recruited to perform the cellular function of telomere maintenance.

⁴ Corresponding author.

E-mail avillasante{at}cbm.uam.es; fax 34-91-4974799.

[Supplemental material is available online at www.genome.org. The sequence data from this study have been submitted to GenBank under accession nos. AM161543, AM040250-6, AM040240-1, AM040246-9, and AM040237-9.]

Article published online before print. Article and publication date are at http://www.genome.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gr.6365107

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?