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Retroelements containing introns in diverse invertebrate taxa
Irina R Arkhipova1, Konstantin I Pyatkov, Matthew Meselson
1Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
Nature Genetics
|January 14, 2003
Abstract:
We report that two structurally similar transposable elements containing reverse transcriptase (RT), Penelope in Drosophila virilis and Athena in bdelloid rotifers, have proliferated as copies containing introns. The ability of Penelope-like elements (PLEs) to retain introns, their separate phylogenetic placement and their peculiar structural features make them a novel class of eukaryotic retroelements.