A RETROTRANSPOSON FAMILY FROM THE PUFFERFISH (FUGU) FUGU RUBRIPES

In this study we describe the isolation and characterisation of the fi rst full-length vertebrate retrotransposon. Knowledge of vertebrate gy psy LTR-retrotransposons has been limited to short internal sequences from three fish and a corrupt sequence from a salamander. This paper d escribes 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 fram es (ORFs) are predicted from the sequence. The first has homology to r etroviral gag genes. The second includes sequences homologous to prote ase, reverse transcriptase/RNase H and integrase domains, in that orde r. Sequence comparisons of the predicted ORFs indicate that this eleme nt is related to the gypsy class of LTR-retrotransposons. Specifically , the sushi retrotransposons are most closely related to the retrotran sposon group which includes the MAGGY retroelement from the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe grisea and the CfT-1 element from the fungal tomat o pathogen Cladosporium fulvum. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rig hts reserved.