| Project/Area Number |
08408030
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Molecular biology
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| Research Institution | TOKYO INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY |
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Principal Investigator |
OKADA Norihiro Faculty of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Professor, 生命理工学部, 教授 (60132982)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
OHSIMA Kazuhiko Faculty of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Lecturer, 生命理工学部, 講師 (60282852)
村田 成範 東京工業大学, 生命理工学部・生体機構学科, 教務職員 (80280999)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1996 – 1998
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| Project Status |
Completed (Fiscal Year 1998)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥10,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥10,300,000)
Fiscal Year 1998: ¥5,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥5,000,000)
Fiscal Year 1997: ¥5,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥5,300,000)
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| Keywords | SINE / LINE / CR1 / reverse transcriptase / Ebox / zine finger motif / cDNA / レトロウィルス |
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| Research Abstract |
CR1 elements are a family of retroposons. They are classified as long interspersed elements (LINEs) or non-long terminal repeat (non-LTR) retrotransposons, and they have been found in the genomes of many vertebrates. However, they have been only partially characterized and only a 2-kbp region of the 3' end of chicken CR1 has been sequenced. In the present study, we determined the entire consensus sequence of CR1 elements in the turtle genome, designated PsCR1.
The first open reading frame (ORF1) of PsCR1 has two unusual arrangements of Cys residues. One of them includes a zinc finger motif, CX_2CX_<14>CX_2C.The putative zinc finger has cysteine residues with identical spacing and a similar amino acid composition to those found in the species-specific transcription initiation factors, SL1 and TIF-IB.
The 5'-untranslated region (5' UTR) of PsCR1 contains a sequence similar to part of the human L1 promoter, L1 site A, and several cis elements of the type found in eukaryotic genes. Within a region of about 500 bp, there are nine "E boxes", cis elements that are recognized by the basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) family of proteins. This observation raises the possibility that cellular transcription factors that bind to these sequences might act in concert to regulate the expression of PsCR1.
The extent of the sequence divergence of the 3' UTR of CR1-between species was found to be lower than the rate of nonsynonymous substitutions per site in ORF2, suggesting that a strict functional constraint must exist for this region. This result strongly suggests that the conserved 3'-end sequence of CR1 is the recognition site for the reverse transcriptase of CR1. A discussion is presented of a possible mechanism for the integration of CR1 elements and, also, of the intriguing possible recruitment of the reverse transcriptase for the retroposition of SINEs.
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