Poster abstracts
Poster number 32 submitted by Kim Delaney
Characterization of a putative 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 retrotransposons are a unique class of transposon that move via an RNA intermediate through eukaryotic genomes. These elements have an exquisitely specific genomic location: they are only capable of inserting themselves in the middle of the 28S rDNA gene, thus providing thousands of potential genomic insertion points. 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. 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. We are in the process of characterizing these putative transposons via sequencing, locus quantification via qPCR, and a measure of transposition activity via 5’ end profiling. Characterization of this gene will lead to biochemical analysis of the structure and function of the R2 protein in vertebrates as well as a look at the phylogenetic conservation of the HSV-like ribozyme that regulates it’s cleavage from the rRNA transcript and thus plays an important role in transposition.
Keywords: retrotransposon, ribozyme, R2