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MBE Advance Access published online on January 27, 2009
Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msp013
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Published by Oxford University Press 2009

Research Article

New superfamilies of eukaryotic DNA transposons and their internal divisions

Weidong Bao, Matthew G. Jurka, Vladimir V. Kapitonov and Jerzy Jurka*

Genetic Information Research Institute, 1925 Landings Drive, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jurka{at}girinst.org; fax: (650) 961-4473

Received for publication August 11, 2008. Revision received December 10, 2008. Accepted for publication January 13, 2009.

Despite their enormous diversity and abundance, all currently known eukaryotic DNA transposons belong to only 15 superfamilies. Here, we report two new superfamilies of DNA transposons, named Sola and Zator. Sola transposons encode DDD-transposases and are flanked by 4-bp target site duplications (TSD). Elements from the Sola superfamily are distributed in a variety of species including bacteria, protists, plants and metazoans. They can be divided into three distinct groups of elements named Sola1, Sola2 and Sola3. The elements from each group have extremely low sequence identity to each other, different termini, and different target site preferences. However, all three groups belong to a single superfamily based on significant PSI-BLAST identities between their transposases. The DDD transposase sequences encoded by Sola transposons are not similar to any known transposases. The second superfamily named Zator is characterized by 3-bp TSD. The Zator superfamily is relatively rare in eukaryotic species, and it evolved from a bacterial transposon encoding a transposase belonging to the "transposase 36" family (Pfam07592). These transposons are named TP36 elements (abbreviated from transposase 36).

Key Words: DNA transposon • Sola • Zator • TP36 • transposase


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