Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2006;2006(1):13569.
doi: 10.1155/JBB/2006/13569.

Links between repeated sequences

Sachiko Matsutani  1
Affiliations

Links between repeated sequences

Sachiko Matsutani. J Biomed Biotechnol. 2006.

Abstract

L1 and Alu elements are long and short interspersed retrotransposable elements (LINEs and SINEs) in humans, respectively. Proteins encoded in the autonomous L1 mediate retrotransposition of the nonautonomous Alu and cellular mRNAs. Alu is the only active SINE in the human genome and is derived from 7SL RNA of signal recognition particle. In the other eukaryotic genomes, various tRNA- and 5S rRNA-derived SINEs are found. Some of the tRNA- and 5S rRNA-derived SINEs have partner LINEs of which 3' sequences are similar to those of the SINEs. One of the tRNA-derived SINEs is shown to be mobilized by its partner LINE. Many copies of tRNA and 5S rRNA pseudogenes are present in the human genome. These pseudogenes may have been generated via the retrotransposition process using L1 proteins. Although there are no sequence similarities between L1 and Alu, L1 functionally links with Alu and even cellular genes, impacting on our genome shaping.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Retrotransposition of the human LINE-1 (L1) elements and their dependents. L1 contains two open reading frames ORF1 and ORF2. Products of these ORFs associate with the transcripts of L1, Alu, and cellular genes. The RNA-protein complexes bind to another part of the genome, and new elements of L1 and Alu, and pseudogenes which lack introns are generated. Genes for small RNAs like tRNA and 5S rRNA may also retrotranspose. In the other eukaryotic genomes, there are also tRNA- and 5S rRNA-derived SINEs. tRNA- and 5S rRNA-derived SINEs have tRNA- and 5S rRNA-related regions at the 5′ ends, respectively. The 3′ end regions of some of the tRNA- and 5S rRNA-derived SINEs show similarities to the 3′ end regions of their partner LINEs at the nucleotide sequence level.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Lander ES, Linton LM, Birren B, et al. Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome. Nature. 2001;409(6822):860–921. - PubMed
    1. Athanikar JN, Badge RM, Moran JV. A YY1-binding site is required for accurate human LINE-1 transcription initiation. Nucleic Acids Research. 2004;32(13):3846–3855. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Moran JV, Holmes SE, Naas TP, DeBerardinis RJ, Boeke JD, Kazazian HH., Jr High frequency retrotransposition in cultured mammalian cells. Cell. 1996;87(5):917–927. - PubMed
    1. Swergold GD. Identification, characterization, and cell specificity of a human LINE-1 promoter. Molecular and Cellular Biology. 1990;10(12):6718–6729. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hohjoh H, Singer MF. Cytoplasmic ribonucleoprotein complexes containing human LINE-1 protein and RNA. The EMBO Journal. 1996;15(3):630–639. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources