Retrotransposons at Drosophila telomeres: Host domestication of a selfish element for the maintenance of genome integrity

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• 作者：Liang Zhang ; Yikang S. Rong ; ^{rongy@mail.nih.gov}
• 关键词：Telomere elongation ; Non-LTR retrotransposon ; Drosophila ; piRNA ; Telomerase recruitment ; Telomere capping
• 刊名：Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Gene Regulatory Mechanisms
• 出版年：2012
• 出版时间：July, 2012
• 年：2012
• 卷：1819
• 期：7
• 页码：771-775
• 全文大小：403 K

文摘

Telomere serves two essential functions for the cell. It prevents the recognition of natural chromosome ends as DNA breaks (the end capping function). It counteracts incomplete end replication by adding DNA to the ends of chromosomes (the end elongation function). In most organisms studied, telomerase fulfills the end elongation function. In Drosophila, however, telomere specific retrotransposons have been coerced into performing this essential function for the host. In this review, we focus our discussion on transposition mechanisms and transcriptional regulation of these transposable elements, and present provocative models for the purpose of spurring new interests in the field. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Chromatin in time and space.