A novel non-coding DNA family in Caenorhabditis elegans

Many repetitive elements, for example, SINEs, LINEs, LTR-retrotransposons and other SSRs are dispersed throughout eukaryotic genomes. To understand the biological function of these repetitive elements is of great current research interest. previous termInnext term this study, we report on the identification of previous terma novel non-coding DNA family,next term designated CE1 previous termfamily, innext term the nematode C. previous termelegansnext term genome. Some CE1 elements constituted previous termanext term large palindrome sequence. The CE1 elements were interspersed at 95 sites previous terminnext term the C. previous termelegansnext term genome. Most of the CE1 elements were associated with, or were within, protein-coding genes. The sequence of the CE1 elements indicated that some could form previous termanext term hairpin structure. One of the CE1 previous termfamily,next term CE1(bs258), is located previous terminnext term the first intron of previous terma novelnext term gene, C46H11.6 which encodes previous termanext term PDZ/DHR/GLGF domain protein. previous termInnext term gfp and lacZ reporter gene assays the CE1(bs258) element appeared to behave as an enhancer element for the expression of C46H11.6 but no effect on the expression of the opposite direction gene, pat-10 which encodes the body-wall muscle troponin C. The CE1(bs258) RNA transcript was detected by RT-PCR even when CE1(bs258) was located previous terminnext term an intron. We conclude that CE1 elements are involved previous terminnext term the expression of adjacent genes and are therefore selectively retained previous terminnext term the C. previous termelegansnext term genome. We discussed previous termanext term biological function of the CE1(bs258) having many transcription factor-binding sites.

Digital Object Identifer:doi:10.1016/j.gene.2006.10.002
Published with permission from the copyright holder. This is the author's copy, as published in Gene, 15 February 2007, Volume 388, Issue 1-2, Pages 61-73. Publisher
URL:http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1016/j.gene.2006.10.002
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