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arXiv · 0811.3508

Transduplication resulted in the incorporation of two protein-coding sequences into the Turmoil-1 transposable element of C. elegans

Noa Sela·Adi Stern·Wojciech Makalowski·Tal Pupko·Gil Ast
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Abstract

Transposable elements may acquire unrelated gene fragments into their sequences in a process called transduplication. Transduplication of protein-coding genes is common in plants, but is unknown of in animals. Here, we report that the Turmoil-1 transposable element in C. elegans has incorporated two protein-coding sequences into its inverted terminal repeat (ITR) sequences. The ITRs of Turmoil-1 contain a conserved RNA recognition motif (RRM) that originated from the rsp- 2 gene and a fragment from the protein-coding region of the cpg-3 gene. We further report that an open reading frame specific to C. elegans may have been created as a result of a Turmoil-1 insertion. Mutations at the 5' splice site of this open reading frame may have reactivated the transduplicated RRM motif

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Noa Sela, Adi Stern, Wojciech Makalowski, Tal Pupko, Gil Ast. 2008-11-21. Transduplication resulted in the incorporation of two protein-coding sequences into the Turmoil-1 transposable element of C. elegans. https://doi.org/10.1186/1745-6150-3-41

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