AURORA, A NON-MOBILE RETROTRANSPOSON IN DROSOPHILA-MELANOGASTER HETEROCHROMATIN

A novel retrotransposon, aurora, containing 324 bp long terminal repea ts (LTRs) was detected in Drosophila melanogaster as a 5 kb insertion in the heterochromatic Stellate gene. This insertion causes a 5 bp dup lication of the integration site. Southern analysis and in situ hybrid ization data show that all detectable copies of aurora are immobilized in the D. melanogaster heterochromatin. However, mobile copies of aur ora were revealed in the cuchromatin of D. simulans. The element was a lso found in various species of the melanogaster subgroup and in the D . virilis genome.