The role and amplification of the HS Alu subfamily founder gene.
A recently identified Alu element (Leeflang et al. J. Mol. Evol. 1993, 37:559-565), referred to as the "putative founder of the HS (PV) subfamily," was found to be present at orthologous loci in the human, chimpanzee, gorilla, and gibbon lineages. The evolution of this Alu suggested that it is a source gene in the evolution of Alu family repeats for one of the most recent subfamilies, HS. We have determined that this putative founder of the HS subfamily was not present at the orthologous loci in older primates, including old world and new world monkeys. Thus, this particular Alu locus has only been responsible for the establishment of a very small subfamily of Alu sequences. We have further demonstrated that this putative founder Alu was not responsible for the de novo Alu insertion into the neurofibromatosis-1 gene of an individual causing neurofibromatosis. Our data demonstrate that although the putative founder of the HS subfamily found by Leeflang et al. (1993) probably gave rise to one of the most recent subfamilies of Alu sequences, it has not been very active in retroposition.
Shaikh
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Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Louisiana State University Medical Center, New Orleans 70112, USA.
Deininger
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PL
D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D005075:Biological Evolution; D005784:Gene Amplification; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011323:Primates / Q000235:genetics*; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid / Q000235:genetics*; D016415:Sequence Alignment