Transcription of the rat testis-specific Rtdpoz-T1 and -T2 retrogenes during embryo development: co-transcription and frequent exonisation of transposable element sequences.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Retrotransposition is an important evolutionary force for the creation of new and potentially functional intronless genes which are collectively called retrogenes. Many retrogenes are expressed in the testis and the gene products have been shown to actively participate in spermatogenesis and other unique functions of the male germline. We have previously reported a cluster of retrogenes in the rat genome that encode putative TRAF- and POZ-domain proteins. Two of the genes, Rtdpoz-T1 and -T2 (abbreviated as T1 and T2), have further been shown to be expressed specifically in the rat testis.

Results

We show here that the T1 and T2 genes are also expressed in the rat embryo up to days 16-17 of development when the genes are silenced until being re-activated in the adu

SUBMITTER: Huang CJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2724483 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature