Short interspersed repeats in rabbit DNA can provide functional polyadenylation signals

Analysis of 37 short repetitive elements (SINEs) in rabbit DNA that are known as C repeats has revealed three that contribute functional polyadenylation signals to genes into which they have been inserted. Similar roles have been attributed to particular individual SINEs in rodents and primates before, suggesting that these roles may be common to SINEs in all mammalian orders. Although most SINEs appear to have little influence on the genome individually, the observation that three of 36 rabbit C repeats provide functional sequences suggests a mechanism for the maintenance of SINEs within mammalian genomes.