LONG TERMINAL REPEATS OF DROSOPHILA MOBILE ELEMENTS DIRECT TRANSCRIPTION IN ESCHERICHIA-COLI-CELLS

Similarity of Drosophila retrotransposon structure and properties to t hose of vertebrate retroviruses which earlier were reported to be able to direct transcription in prokaryotic cells, suggested that the LTRs (long terminal repeats) of Drosophila retrotransposons, mdg1 and mdg4 , may exhibit similar activity in E. coil cells. To study this questio n, we used various constructs containing the bacterial gene of chloram phenicol acetyltransferase (cat) under the control of mdg1 and mdg4 LT Rs. Analysis of transcription and expression of the cat reporter gene under the control of mdg1 and mdg4 LTR sequences (gypsy) revealed that LTRs of these retrotransposons are able to direct cat gene transcript ion in E. coli cells because they contain the promoter-like elements f or prokaryotic RNA polymerase.