title: Schistosoma haematobium and S. japonicum: analysis of the ribosomal RNA genes and determination of the "gap" boundaries and sequences.
abstract: We have determined the intragenic organization of the rRNA genes of Schistosoma haematobium and S. japonicum and found them to be similar to that of S. mansoni and other eukaryotes. An entire ribosomal repeat approximately 10 kbp in size from each species was isolated as a SalI fragment from a genomic library constructed in bacteriophage lambda. The segments encoding both the small and large rRNAs have been identified using three cloned EcoRI fragments of S. mansoni as probes. There were three EcoRI fragments (4.2, 3.0, 1.6 kbp) from S. haematobium and four EcoRI fragments (4.6, 2.3, 1.7, 1.0 kbp) from S. japonicum. As in a wide variety of organisms within the protostome phyla, the 28S rRNA in schistosomes contains a "gap" which separates it into two fragments. The length of the gap sequence in S. haematobium is 54 bases and it is identical to that in S. mansoni in both length and sequence. However, in S. japonicum the sequence is between 64-67 bases long. In each case, irrespective of the species, the gap is located at the same position within the 28S rRNA. Secondary structures of the gap sequence derived by computer analysis predict a conformation with the minimum free energy that has an UAAU tract in a hairpin loop for S. haematobium and an UAUU tract for S. japonicum.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, State University of New York, Buffalo 14214.
authors.forename: P M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Mertz
authors.forename: L A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Bobek
authors.forename: D M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Rekosh
authors.forename: P T
authors.initials: PT
authors.lastname: LoVerde
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal / Q000235:genetics*; D015246:Deoxyribonuclease EcoRI; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D012339:RNA, Ribosomal, 28S / Q000235:genetics*; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid; D015183:Restriction Mapping; D012548:Schistosoma haematobium / Q000235:genetics*; D012549:Schistosoma japonicum / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D004275:DNA, Ribosomal; D012339:RNA, Ribosomal, 28S; D015246:Deoxyribonuclease EcoRI