Abstract
We recently described a maize mutant caused by an insertion of a Helitron type transposable element (Lal, S.K., Giroux, M.J., Brendel, V., Vallejos, E. and Hannah, L.C., 2003, Plant Cell, 15: 381–391). Here we describe another Helitron insertion in the barren stalk1 gene of maize. The termini of a 6525 bp insertion in the proximal promoter region of the mutant reference allele of maize barren stalk1 gene (ba1-ref) shares striking similarity to the Helitron insertion we reported in the Shrunken-2 gene. This insertion is embedded with pseudogenes that differ from the pseudogenes discovered in the mutant Shrunken-2 insertion. Using the common terminal ends of the mutant insertions as a query, we discovered other Helitron insertions in maize BAC clones. Based on the comparison of the insertion site and PCR amplified genomic sequences, these elements inserted between AT dinucleotides. These putative non-autonomous Helitroninsertions completely lacked sequences similar to RPA (replication protein A) and DNA Helicases reported in other species. A blastn analysis indicated that both the 5′ and 3′ termini of Helitrons are repeated in the maize genome. These data provide strong evidence that Helitron type transposable elements are active and may have played an essential role in the evolution and expansion of the maize genome.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
S.F. Altschul W. Gish W. Miller E.W. Myers D.J. Lipman (1990) ArticleTitleBasic local alignment search tool J. Mol. Biol. 215 403–410
J.L. Bennetzen (2000) ArticleTitleTransposable element contributions to plant gene and genome evolution Plant Mol. Biol. 42 251–269
J.L. Bennetzen W. Ramakrishna (2002) ArticleTitleExceptional haplotype variation in maize Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99 9093–9095
V. Brendel W. Zhu (2002) ArticleTitleComputational modeling of gene structure in Arabidopsis thaliana Plant Mol. Biol. 48 49–58
N. Collins J. Drake M. Ayliffe Q. Sun J. Ellis S. Hulbert T. Pryor (1999) ArticleTitleMolecular characterization of the maize Rp1-D rust resistance haplotype and its mutants Plant Cell 11 1365–1376 Occurrence Handle10.1105/tpc.11.7.1365 Occurrence Handle1:CAS:528:DyaK1MXkvFertbY%3D Occurrence Handle10402435
H.P. Doring P. Starlinger (1986) ArticleTitleMolecular genetics of transposable elements in plants Annu. Rev. Genet. 20 175–200
N.A. Eckardt (2003) ArticleTitleA new twist on transposon: the maize genome harbors a Helitron insertion Plant Cell 15 293–295
W.R. Engels (1983) ArticleTitleThe P family of transposable elements in Drosophila Annu. Rev. Genet. 17 315–344
Fedoroff N.V. (1989). In: Berg D.E., Howe M.M. (eds.), Mobile DINA American Society for Microbiology Press, Washington DC. PP. 375–411
N.V. Fedoroff (1989) ArticleTitleAbout maize transposable elements and development Cell 56 181–191
C. Feschotte N. Jiang S.R. Wessler (2002) ArticleTitlePlant transposable elements: where genetics meets genomics Nat. Rev. Genet. 3 329–341
C. Feschotte S.R. Wessler (2001) ArticleTitleTreasures in the attic: Rolling circle transposons discovered in eucaryotic genomes Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 98 8923–8914
H. Fu H.K. Dooner (2002) ArticleTitleIntraspecific violation of genetic colinearity and its implications in maize Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99 9573–9578
A. Gallavotti Q. Zhao J. Kyozuka R. Meeley M. Ritter J. Doebley M. Enrico Pe‘ R.J. Schmidt (2004) ArticleTitleThe role of barren stalk1 in the architecture of maize Nature 132 630–635
M.J. Giroux L.C. Hannah (1994) ArticleTitleADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase in shrunken2 and brittle2 mutants of maize Mol. Gen. Genet. 243 400–408
X. Gong S. Kaushal E. Ceccarelli N. Bogdanova C. Neville T. Nguyen H. Clark Z.A. Khatib M. Valentine A.T. Look N. Rosenthal (1997) ArticleTitleDevelopmental regulation of Zbu1, a DNA-binding member of the SWI2/SNF2 family Dev. Biol. 183 166–182
R.M. Hall C.M. Collis (1995) ArticleTitleMobile gene cassettes and integrons: capture and spread of genes by site-specific recombination Mol. Microbiol. 15 593–600
Hofmeyer J.D.J. (1930). The inheritance and linkage relationships of barrenstalk1 and barrenstalk2, two mature plant characters of maize. Ph.D. Dissertation, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
Y.K. Jin J.L. Bennetzen (1989) ArticleTitleStructure and coding properties of Bs1, a maize retrovirus- like transposable element Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 86 6235–6239
V.V. Kapitonov J. Jurka (2001) ArticleTitleRolling circle transposons in eukaryotes Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 17 8714–8719
V.V. Kapitonov J. Jurka (2003) ArticleTitleMolecular paleontology of transposable elements in the Drosophila melanogaster genome Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 100 6569–6574
S.A. Khan (2000) ArticleTitlePlasmid rolling circle replication: recent development Mol. Microl. 37 477–484
R. Kunze H. Saedler W.E. Lonnig (1997) ArticleTitlePlant transposable elements Adv. Bot. Res. 27 331–470
S.K. Lal M.J. Giroux V. Brendel E. Vallejos L.C. Hannah (2003) ArticleTitleThe maize genome contains a Helitron insertion Plant Cell 15 381–391
E.S. Lander et al. (2001) ArticleTitleInitial sequencing and analysis of the human genome Nature. 409 860–921
C.J. Lawrence Q. Dong M.L. Polacco T.E. Seigfried V. Brendel (2004) ArticleTitleMaizeGDB, the community database for’ maize genetics and genomics Nucleic. Acids Res. 32 393–397
C. Levesque S. Brassard J. Lapointe P.H. Roy (1994) ArticleTitleDiversity and relative strength of tandem promoters for the antibiotic-resistance genes of several integrons Gene 142 49–54 Occurrence Handle10.1016/0378-1119(94)90353-0 Occurrence Handle8181756
D.R. McCarty (1986) ArticleTitleA simple method for extraction of RNA’from maize tissue Maize Genet. Coop. Newslett. 60 61
M.V. Mendiola I. Bernales F. Cruz Particlede la (1994) ArticleTitleDifferential roles of the transposon termini in IS91 transposition Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (USA) 91 1922–1926
P. Nevers N. Shepherd H. Saedler (1986) ArticleTitlePlant transposble elements Adv. Bot. Res. 12 102–203
R.T. Poulter T.J. Goodwin M.I. Butler (2003) ArticleTitleVertebrate helentrons and other novel Helitrons Gene 313 201–212
W. Ramakrishna J. Emberton M. Ogden P. SanMiguel J.L. Bennetzen (2002) ArticleTitleStructural analysis of the maize Rp1 complex reveals numerous sites and unexpected mechanisms of local rearrangement Plant Cell 13 3213–3223
M.K. Ritter C.M. Padilla R.J. Schmidt (2002) ArticleTitleThe maize mutant barren stalk1 is defective in axillary meristem development Am. J. Bot. 89 203–210
D.A. Rowe-Magnus D. Mazel (2001) ArticleTitleIntegrons: natural tools for bacterial genome evolution Curr. Opin. Microbiol. 5 565–569
M.A. Saghai-Maroof K.M. Soliman R.A. Jorgensen R.W. Allard (1984) ArticleTitleRibosomal DNA spacer-length polymorphisms in barley: mendelian inheritance, chromosomal location, and population dynamics Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 81 8014–8018
M.F. Singer V. Krek J.P. McMillan G.D. Swergold R.E. Thayer (1993) ArticleTitleLINE-1: a human transposable element Gene 135 183–188
R. Song J. Messing (2003) ArticleTitleGene expression of a gene family in maize based on noncollinear haplotypes Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 100 9055–9060
N. Tavakoli A. Comanducci H.M. Dodd M.C. Lett P. Albiger Bennett (2000) ArticleTitleIS1294, a DNA element that transposes by RC transposition Plasmid 44 66–84
J. Usuka V. Brendel (2000) ArticleTitleGene structure prediction by spliced alignment of genomic DNA with protein sequences: increased accuracy by differential splice site scoring J. Mol. Biol. 297 1075–1085
J. Usuka W. Zhu V. Brendel (2000) ArticleTitleOptimal spliced alignment of homologous cDNA to a genomic DNA template Bioinformatics 16 203–211
S.R. Wessler T.E. Bureau S.E. White (1995) ArticleTitleLTR-retrotransposons and MITEs: Important players in the evolution of plant genomes Curr. Open. Genet. Dev. 5 814–821
W. Zhu V. Brendel (2002) ArticleTitleGene structure identification with MyGV using cDNA evidence and protein homologs to improve al binitio predictions Bioinformatics 18 761–762
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gupta, S., Gallavotti, A., Stryker, G.A. et al. A novel class of Helitron- related transposable elements in maize contain portions of multiple pseudogenes. Plant Mol Biol 57, 115–127 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-004-6636-z
Received:
Revised:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-004-6636-z