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Activity of the transposon Tam3 in Antirrhinum and tobacco: possible role of DNA methylation.
Author(s) -
Martin C.,
Prescott A.,
Lister C.,
MacKay S.
Publication year - 1989
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.1460-2075.1989.tb03466.x
Subject(s) - biology , antirrhinum majus , transposase , transposable element , genetics , retrotransposon , antirrhinum , dna methylation , methylation , rna directed dna methylation , transposition (logic) , nicotiana tabacum , dna , gene , arabidopsis , gene expression , linguistics , philosophy , genome , mutant
The transposon Tam3 from Antirrhinum majus can transpose in a heterologous host (Nicotiana tabacum); thus the element is autonomous, probably encoding the specific information required for its own transposition. In transgenic tobacco Tam3 rapidly becomes methylated at its ends whilst adjacent flanking sequences remain hypomethylated. This methylation may account for our failure to detect Tam3 transposition in the progeny of transgenic tobacco. Treatment with the inhibitor of cytosine methylation, 5 aza‐cytosine appeared to induce transposon related activity at a low level. In Antirrhinum methylation also appears to be associated with inactivation of Tam3 copies.