Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Abad, José P
• De Pablos, Beatriz
• Osoegawa, Kazutoyo
• De Jong, Pieter J
• Martín-Gallardo, Antonia
• Villasante, Alfredo

Titel

TAHRE, a novel telomeric retrotransposon from Drosophila melanogaster, reveals the origin of Drosophila telomeres

Ist Teil von

• Molecular biology and evolution, 2004-09, Vol.21 (9), p.1620-1624

Ort / Verlag

United States

Erscheinungsjahr

2004

Quelle

Oxford Journals 2020 Medicine

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Drosophila telomeres do not have typical telomerase repeats. Instead, two families of non-LTR retrotransposons, HeT-A and TART, maintain telomere length by occasional transposition to the chromosome ends. Despite the work on Drosophila telomeres, its evolutionary origin remains controversial. Herein we describe a novel telomere-specific retroelement that we name TAHRE (Telomere-Associated and HeT-A-Related Element). The structure of the three telomere-specific elements indicates a common ancestor. These results suggest that preexisting transposable elements were recruited to perform the cellular function of telomere maintenance. A recruitment similar to that of a retrotransposal reverse transcriptase has been suggested as the common origin of telomerases.