In vitro targeting of strand transfer by the Ty3 retroelement integrase

The Saccharomyces cerevisiae long terminal repeat retrotransposon Ty3 integrates within one or two nucleotides of the transcription initiation sites of genes transcribed by RNA polymerase III. In this study the minimal components required to re-constitute position-specific strand transfer by Ty3 integrase are defined. Ty3 integrase targeted by a synthetic fusion of RNA polymerase III transcription factor IIIB subunits, Brf1 and TBP, mediated position-specific strand transfer of duplex oligonucleotides representing the ends of the Ty3 cDNA. These results further delimit the TFIIIB domains targeted by the Ty3 element and show that IN is the Ty3 component sufficient in vitro to target integration. These results underscore the commonality of protein interactions that mediate transcription and retrotransposon targeting. Surprisingly, in the presence of MnCl(2), strand transfer was TFIIIB-independent and targeted sequences resembling the Ty3 terminal inverted repeat.