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Evidence that white‐blood is a novel type of temperature‐sensitive mutation resulting from temperature‐dependent effects of a transposon insertion on formation of white transcripts.
Author(s) -
Bingham P.M.,
Chapman C.H.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
the embo journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 7.484
H-Index - 392
eISSN - 1460-2075
pISSN - 0261-4189
DOI - 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1986.tb04649.x
Subject(s) - biology , transposable element , mutant , white (mutation) , retrotransposon , mutation , genetics , intron , gene , phenotype , wild type , polyadenylation , microbiology and biotechnology , rna
We report results indicating that the temperature‐sensitive white‐blood (wbl) mutation has a novel molecular basis, involving the formation of RNA transcripts of the affected gene rather than the behavior of the polypeptide product. First, we show that the temperature‐sensitive mutant phenotype of wbl correlates with (and presumably results from) a temperature‐dependent effect on levels of the 2.6‐kb polyadenylated white transcript. Second, DNA sequence analysis and other studies show that wbl is associated with the insertion into the second white intron of a previously uncharacterized retrotransposon (designated the blood transposon). We discuss the potential origins of the novel temperature‐sensitive molecular phenotype of wbl and the prospects for exploiting wbl to engineer temperature‐sensitive mutations in other genes.