Isolation and characterization of active LINE and SINEs from the eel

• Published in: Molecular biology and evolution Vol. 22; no. 3; pp. 673 - 682
• Main Authors: Kajikawa, Masaki, Ichiyanagi, Kenji, Tanaka, Nozomu, Okada, Norihiro
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.03.2005
• Subjects: Amino Acid Sequence; Anguilla japonica; Animals; Base Sequence; Eels - genetics; Evolution, Molecular; Genome; Long Interspersed Nucleotide Elements - genetics; Molecular Sequence Data; Short Interspersed Nucleotide Elements - genetics
• ISSN: 0737-4038; 1537-1719
• DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msi054

Long interspersed elements (LINEs) and short interspersed elements (SINEs) are retrotransposons. These elements can mobilize by the "copy-and-paste" mechanism, in which their own RNA is reverse-transcribed into complementary DNA (cDNA). LINEs and SINEs not only are components of eukaryotic genomes but also drivers of genomic evolution. Thus, studies of the amplification mechanism of LINEs and SINEs are important for understanding eukaryotic genome evolution. Here we report the characterization of one LINE family (UnaL2) and two SINE families (UnaSINE1 and UnaSINE2) from the eel (Anguilla japonica) genome. UnaL2 is approximately 3.6 kilobases (kb) and encodes only one open reading frame (ORF). UnaL2 belongs to the stringent type--thought to be a major group of LINEs--and can mobilize in HeLa cells. We also show that UnaL2 and the two UnaSINEs have similar 3' tails, and that both UnaSINE1 and UnaSINE2 can be mobilized by UnaL2 in HeLa cells. These elements are thus useful for delineating the amplification mechanism of stringent type LINEs as well as that of SINEs.