TITLE:
AtL1 a Non-LTR Retrotrasposon Fragment in the Genome of Arabidopsis thaliana with Homology to Plants and Animals
AUTHORS:
Giovanna Visioli, Elena Maestri, Eugenia Polverini, Angelo Pavesi, Nelson Marmiroli
KEYWORDS:
Arabidopsis; Heat Shock; Plant Retrotransposons; LINE Retrotransposons; Horizontal Transposon Transfer (HTT)
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Plant Sciences,
Vol.4 No.4,
April
17,
2013
ABSTRACT: We report the isolation of AtL1,
a 249 bp non-LTR retrotransposon fragment from Arabidopsis thaliana by fingerprinting mRNAs extracted from A. thaliana plants, ecotype Columbia, in different heat stress
conditions. Southern blot and PCR analysis suggested that AtL1 occurs as a single- or low-copy insert in the genome of A. thaliana ecotype Columbia. The
presence of AtL1 in the genome of different Arabidopsis ecotypes was confirmed by
PCR amplification and sequencing
thus excluding all possible contamination. A preliminary scan of the AtL1 nucleotide sequence against the
EMBL and NCBI databases revealed a high degree of similarity to a group of LINE
type L1 retrotransposons of mammals
and with a cDNA sequence of Artemisia
annua. A phylogenetic analysis of LINE elements from animals and plants
placed AtL1 and A. annua sequences in close proximity to some mammalian sequences
but distant from the other plants LINE elements including those from Arabidopsis.