Species-specific mobile genetic elements in the gene of repair enzyme MGMT in new world monkeys

Aim.To analyze the distribution of species-specific mobile genetic elements (MGE) in orthologs of the MGMT gene in Platyrrhina. Methods. The homology between nucleotide sequences was determined by BLAST 2.6.1. The results of the search and identification of MGE were performed  using  the  CENSOR program. Results. On the example of orthologs of the MGMT gene in New World monkeys, it has been shown that different species-specific MGE identified in their intron sequences may have different evolutionary chronologies. In the case of the element Alu2_TS, which originated in the Tarsiiformes representative, it was found that in evolutionarily close primates it undergoes deletion degradation, while fragments of the human-specific L1Hs element are found in the genomes of evolutionarily distant primates long before the formation and emergence of this retroelement. Conclusions. The chronology of  evolutionary changes in the gene MGMT and its species-specific MGE can be of different nature and occur in parallele and independently. Keywords: Platyrrhina, MGMT gene, MGE, Alu2_TS, L1Hs.