A retrotransposon family from the pufferfish (fugu) Fugu rubripes

Abstract

In this study we describe the isolation and characterisation of the first full-length vertebrate retrotransposon. Knowledge of vertebrate gypsy LTR-retrotransposons has been limited to short internal sequences from three fish and a corrupt sequence from a salamander. This paper describes the sequence of a full-length (5.645 kb) retrotransposon from the fugu fish Fugu rubripes. The retrotransposon, termed sushi-ichi (032H04), is a representative of a retrotransposon family (sushi) found as multiple copies within the fish genome. Two long open reading frames (ORFs) are predicted from the sequence. The first has homology to retroviral gag genes. The second includes sequences homologous to protease, reverse transcriptase/RNase H and integrase domains, in that order. Sequence comparisons of the predicted ORFs indicate that this element is related to the gypsy class of LTR-retrotransposons. Specifically, the sushi retrotransposons are most closely related to the retrotransposon group which includes the MAGGY retroelement from the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe grisea and the CfT-1 element from the fungal tomato pathogen Cladosporium fulvum.