A rice Stowaway MITE for gene transfer in yeast

Miniature inverted repeat transposable elements (MITEs) lack protein coding capacity and often share very limited sequence similarity with potential autonomous elements. Their capability of efficient transposition and dramatic amplification led to the proposition that MITEs are an untapped rich source of materials for transposable element (TE) based genetic tools. To test the concept of using MITE sequence in gene transfer, a rice Stowaway MITE previously shown to excise efficiently in yeast was engineered to carry cargo genes (neo and gfp) for delivery into the budding yeast genome. Efficient excision of the cargo gene cassettes was observed even though the excision frequency generally decreases with the increase of the cargo sizes. Excised elements insert into new genomic loci efficiently, with about 65% of the obtained insertion sites located in genes. Elements at the primary insertion sites can be remobilized, frequently resulting in copy number increase of the element. Surprisingly, the orientation of a cargo gene (neo) on a construct bearing dual reporter genes (gfp and neo) was found to have a dramatic effect on transposition frequency. These results demonstrated the concept that MITE sequences can be useful in engineering genetic tools to deliver cargo genes into eukaryotic genomes.