Abstract.
Previously we have described highly unstable yellow mutations induced by chimeric elements that consist of genomic sequences originating from different regions of the X chromosome flanked by identical copies of an internally deleted 1.2 kb P element. To study further the origin and the mechanism of formation of chimeric mobile elements, we analyzed complex y-sc mutations, induced by inversions between P elements located in the neighboring yellow and scute loci. The breakpoints of the inversions are flanked by two P elements in head-to-head orientation on one side and by one P element on the other side. Such an arrangement of P elements leads to frequent duplication into the site between the two P element copies located in head-to-head orientation of the yellow sequences adjacent to the single P element. The duplicated yellow sequences either partly replace the sequence of one of the P elements or are inserted between the conserved head-to-head oriented P elements. In some cases two copies of the yellow sequence are duplicated between the P elements in inverted tail-to-tail orientation. The structure of the P elements at the place of duplication and of the P element-yellow junction suggests that the described duplications, which form chimeric mobile elements, are generated through the previously proposed synthesis-dependent strand annealing mechanism.
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Golovnin, A., Georgieva, S., Hovhannisyan, H. et al. P element-mediated duplications of genomic regions in Drosophila melanogaster . Chromosoma 111, 126–138 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00412-001-0177-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00412-001-0177-x