期刊名称:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN:0027-8424
电子版ISSN:1091-6490
出版年度:1994
卷号:91
期号:8
页码:3408-3412
DOI:10.1073/pnas.91.8.3408
语种:English
出版社:The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要:Copies of mariner-like element (MLE) transposons in two species, the bumble bee, Bombus terrestris, and the ant, Myrmica ruginodis, were sequenced. The full-sized elements are 1250 bp long in both species and include 28-bp inverted terminal repeats. The five copies sequenced were approximately 75% similar to a mariner element (peach) of Drosophila mauritiana. The distribution of MLE in 27 hymenopteran species was studied by PCR and Southern blot hybridization; 93% of the species contained one or more of the four major forms of the element. They are inserted in their host genomes, in the middle of a degenerated 30-bp palindrome, which is itself located in an 85-bp conserved region with a purine-rich tail at one of its ends. The hymenopteran MLEs lie in a specific insertion site, suggesting that this region is conserved. It is thus possible that this region may be a selectively neutral insertion site, which would explain why these elements are widespread in hymenopteran genomes and are not eliminated by male haploidy.