Poster abstracts
Poster number 29 submitted by Kim Delaney
Characterization of a putative HSV-like ribozyme in an R2 retrotransposon in the vertebrates Lampetra aepyptera and Lethenteron appendix.
Rex Meade Strange (Biology Department, University of Southern Indiana), L. Peyton Russelburg (Molecular Biology, University of Utah), Kimberly J. Delaney (Biology Department, University of Southern Indiana)
Abstract:
R2 retroelements have been extensively characterized in arthropods, but there has been almost no description of R2 elements in vertebrate genomes. We have putatively identified an R2 retrotransposon in the genomes of the lamprey species Lampetra aepyptera and Lethenteron appendix. R2 retrotransposons are a unique class of transposon that move via an RNA intermediate through eukaryotic genomes. These elements insert themselves in the middle of the 28S rDNA gene, and the R2 gene is transcribed as part of the larger rDNA cassette and cleaves itself from the pre-rRNA transcript via a ribozyme encoded in its 5’UTR. We have characterized these putative transposons via sequencing, locus quantification via qPCR, and a measure of transposition activity via 5’ end profiling. We are currently conducting in vitro transcription/cleavage assays on the putative ribozyme to investigate the mechanisms by which the R2 transposition occurs.
Keywords: Retrotransposon, ribozyme