title: Strategy for detecting cellular transcripts promoted by human endogenous long terminal repeats: identification of a novel gene (CDC4L) with homology to yeast CDC4.
abstract: Several families of repetitive sequences related to integrated retroviruses have been identified in the human genome. The largest of these families, the RTVL-H family, has close to 1000 members in addition to a similar number of solitary long terminal repeats (LTRs) dispersed on all chromosomes. Previous work has shown that the expression of genomic RTVL-H elements is driven by their LTRs and that some LTRs can promote expression of a reporter gene. These observations suggest that some endogenous RTVL-HLTRs may naturally regulate the transcription of adjacent cellular genes or that rearrangements involving these elements may cause aberrant gene expression. To investigate this possibility, we have used a differential screening strategy to identify chimeric cDNA clones derived from LTR-promoted transcripts. Here we report the identification and analysis of four such clones isolated from an NTera2D1 (teratocarcinoma) cDNA library. Two of the clones, AF-1 and AF-2, contain termination codons in all reading frames. Another clone, AF-4, contains LTR sequences linked in the genome to a CpG island. The fourth clone, AF-3, contains an 862-bp open reading frame representing part of a novel gene (CDC4L) with homology to the yeast cell division cycle gene CDC4. These findings indicate that RTVL-H elements may be involved in the regulation of diverse cellular transcripts in human cells.
authors.affiliation: Terry Fox Laboratory, British Columbia Cancer Research Centre, Vancouver, Canada.
authors.forename: A E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Feuchter
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Freeman
authors.forename: D L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Mager
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001483:Base Sequence; D015152:Blotting, Northern; D015139:Blotting, Southern; D004247:DNA; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000235:genetics*; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
chemical_list: D004247:DNA