Athila4 of Arabidopsis and Calypso of soybean define a lineage of endogenous plant retroviruses.

ABSTRACT: The Athila retroelements of Arabidopsis thaliana encode a putative envelope gene, suggesting that they are infectious retroviruses. Because most insertions are highly degenerate, we undertook a comprehensive analysis of the A. thaliana genome sequence to discern their conserved features. One family (Athila4) was identified whose members are largely intact and share >94% nucleotide identity. As a basis for comparison, related elements (the Calypso elements) were characterized from soybean. Consensus Calypso and Athila4 elements are 12-14 kb in length and have long terminal repeats of 1.3-1.8 kb. Gag and Pol are encoded on a single open reading frame (ORF) of 1801 (Calypso) and 1911 (Athila4) amino acids. Following the Gag-Pol ORF are noncoding regions of ~0.7 and 2 kb, which, respectively,

SUBMITTER: Wright DA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC155253 | biostudies-literature | 2002 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature