Premium
The 3′ non‐coding region of the Drosophila melanogaster HeT‐A telomeric retrotransposon contains sequences with propensity to form G‐quadruplex DNA
Author(s) -
Abad José P.,
Villasante Alfredo
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
febs letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.593
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1873-3468
pISSN - 0014-5793
DOI - 10.1016/s0014-5793(99)00695-x
Subject(s) - retrotransposon , telomere , biology , drosophila melanogaster , eukaryotic chromosome fine structure , genetics , dna , centromere , chromosome , oligonucleotide , transposable element , gene , genome
HeT‐A elements are non‐long terminal repeat retrotransposons added onto the Drosophila chromosome ends. We have investigated the formation in vitro of higher order structures by oligonucleotides derived from the 3′ non‐coding region of HeT‐A elements and found that they are capable of forming G‐quadruplex DNA. These results suggest that the 3′ repeat region of HeT‐A may structurally behave as the telomeric repeats common to a majority of eukaryotes. The presence of structural motifs shared by telomeres and centromeres and the implications of these findings for chromosome evolution are discussed.