QUETZAL - A TRANSPOSON OF THE TC1 FAMILY IN THE MOSQUITO ANOPHELES-ALBIMANUS

A member of the Tc1 family of transposable elements has been identifie d in the Central and South American mosquito Anopheles albimanus. The full-length Quetzal element is 1680 base pairs (bp) in length, possess es 236 bp inverted terminal repeats (ITRs), and has a single open read ing frame (ORF) with the potential of encoding a 341-amino-acid (aa) p rotein that is similar to the transposases of other members of the Tc1 family, particularly elements described from three different Drosophi la species. The approximately 10-12 copies per genome of Quetzal are f ound in the euchromatin of all three chromosomes of A. albimanus. One full-length clone, Que27, appears capable of encoding a complete trans posase and may represent a functional copy of this element.