Transposition of Reversed Ac Element Ends Generates Novel Chimeric Genes in Maize

Thumbnail Image
Date
2006-10-01
Authors
Zhang, Jianbo
Zhang, Feng
Peterson, Thomas
Major Professor
Advisor
Committee Member
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Authors
Person
Peterson, Thomas
Professor Emeritus
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Is Version Of
Versions
Series
Department
Genetics, Development and Cell Biology
Abstract

The maize Activator/Dissociation (Ac/Ds) elements are members of the hAT (hobo, Ac, and Tam3) superfamily of type II (DNA) transposons that transpose through a “cut-and-paste” mechanism. Previously, we reported that a pair of Ac ends in reversed orientation is capable of undergoing alternative transposition reactions that can generate large-scale chromosomal rearrangements, including deletions and inversions. We show here that rearrangements induced by reversed Ac ends transposition can join the coding and regulatory sequences of two linked paralogous genes to generate a series of chimeric genes, some of which are functional. To our knowledge, this is the first report demonstrating that alternative transposition reactions can recombine gene segments, leading to the creation of new genes.

Comments

This article is from PLoS Genetics 2 (2006): e164, doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.0020164. Posted with permission.

Description
Keywords
Citation
DOI
Copyright
Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 UTC 2006
Collections