Unusual features of the Drosophila melanogaster telomere transposable element HeT-A are conserved in Drosophila yakuba telomere elements.

ABSTRACT: HeT-A was the first transposable element shown to have a bona fide role in chromosome structure, maintenance of telomeres in Drosophila melanogaster. HeT-A has hallmarks of non-long-terminal-repeat (non-LTR) retrotransposable elements but also has several unique features. We have now isolated HeT-A elements from Drosophila yakuba, showing that the retrotransposon mechanism of telomere maintenance predates the separation of D. melanogaster and D. yakuba (5-15 million years ago). HeT-A elements from the two species show significant sequence divergence, yet unusual features seen in HeT-Amel are conserved in HeT-Ayak. In both species, HeT-A elements are found in head-to-tail tandem arrays in telomeric heterochromatin. In both species, nearly half of the HeT-A sequence is noncoding and shows a

SUBMITTER: Danilevskaya ON 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC19912 | biostudies-literature | 1998 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature