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MBE Advance Access published online on September 21, 2007
Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msm205
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Research Article

Characterization of Drosophila Telomeric Retroelement TAHRE: Transcription, Transpositions and RNAi-based Regulation of Expression

Sergey Shpiz1,6, Dmitry Kwon1,2,6, Anastasiya Uneva3, Maria Kim3, Mikhail Klenov1, Yakov Rozovsky1, Pavel Georgiev3, Mikhail Savitsky3,4,5 and Alla Kalmykova1,5

1 Department of Molecular Genetics of Cell, Institute of Molecular Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 123182, Russia
2 Department of Molecular Biology, Moscow State University, Moscow 119899, Russia
3 Department of the Control of Genetic Processes, Institute of Gene Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119334, Russia
4 Centre for Medical Studies of Oslo University, Moscow 199334, Russia

5 Corresponding authors Emails: allakalm{at}img.ras.ru msavitsky{at}gmail.com

Accepted for publication September 4, 2007.

Telomeres in Drosophila are maintained by transpositions of specialized telomeric retroelements HeT-A and TART rather than by the telomerase activity adding short DNA repeats to chromosome ends in other eukaryotes. A novel element TAHRE was previously found in the telomeric regions of the genome of D. melanogaster stock sequenced by the Genome Project. Comparative genomic analysis confirmed by Southern analysis and in situ hybridization of polytene chromosomes reveals conserved TAHRE elements in the genomes of melanogaster subgroup species. Spontaneous attachment of TAHRE retroelement to the broken end of terminally deleted chromosome allows us to consider TAHRE as the third retrotransposon family involved in telomere maintenance in Drosophila. The abundance of TAHRE transcripts in ovaries is strongly upregulated owing to mutations in the RNAi genes spn-E, aub, piwi and vasa locus. spn-E mutations eliminate TAHRE-specific short RNAs in the ovaries. These data suggest that TAHRE is a conservative element involved along with HeT-A and TART in telomere maintenance and a target of the RNAi-based system in the Drosophila germline. This study reveals similar distribution of TAHRE and HeT-A transcripts which accumulate in the oocyte whereas TART transcripts localize in nurse cells. Taking into account a common pattern of HeT-A and TAHRE expression, one may consider TAHRE as a source of reverse transcriptase enzymatic activity for HeT-A transpositions in ovaries.

Key Words: Drosophila • telomere • retrotransposon • TAHRE • RNAi

6 These authors contributed equally to this work.


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Home page
 Nucleic Acids ResHome page
S. Shpiz, D. Kwon, Y. Rozovsky, and A. Kalmykova
rasiRNA pathway controls antisense expression of Drosophila telomeric retrotransposons in the nucleus
Nucleic Acids Res., January 1, 2009; 37(1): 268 - 278.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


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