Transcriptional analysis of the HeT-A retrotransposon in mutant and wild type stocks reveals high sequence variability at Drosophila telomeres and other unusual features

BMC Genomics

Research Article

Elena Casacuberta¹  Elisenda López-Panadès¹  María Lucena-Pérez¹  David Piñeyro¹ 

[1] Institute of Evolutionary Biology (CSIC-UPF), Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta 37-49, 08003, Barcelona, Spain;

关键词: Antisense Transcript;    Cinnabar;    Antisense Transcription;    Longe Telomere;    Antisense Expression;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2164-12-573

 received in 2011-04-28, accepted in 2011-11-23,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundTelomere replication in Drosophila depends on the transposition of a domesticated retroelement, the HeT-A retrotransposon. The sequence of the HeT-A retrotransposon changes rapidly resulting in differentiated subfamilies. This pattern of sequence change contrasts with the essential function with which the HeT-A is entrusted and brings about questions concerning the extent of sequence variability, the telomere contribution of different subfamilies, and whether wild type and mutant Drosophila stocks show different HeT-A scenarios.ResultsA detailed study on the variability of HeT-A reveals that both the level of variability and the number of subfamilies are higher than previously reported. Comparisons between GIII, a strain with longer telomeres, and its parental strain Oregon-R indicate that both strains have the same set of HeT-A subfamilies. Finally, the presence of a highly conserved splicing pattern only in its antisense transcripts indicates a putative regulatory, functional or structural role for the HeT-A RNA. Interestingly, our results also suggest that most HeT-A copies are actively expressed regardless of which telomere and where in the telomere they are located.ConclusionsOur study demonstrates how the HeT-A sequence changes much faster than previously reported resulting in at least nine different subfamilies most of which could actively contribute to telomere extension in Drosophila. Interestingly, the only significant difference observed between Oregon-R and GIII resides in the nature and proportion of the antisense transcripts, suggesting a possible mechanism that would in part explain the longer telomeres of the GIII stock.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Piñeyro et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.