title: Mermaid: a family of short interspersed repetitive elements widespread in vertebrates.
abstract: We have discovered a family of short interspersed repetitive elements (SINEs) that are present in the genomes of fish, amphibian and primates. The family of the SINEs, designated mermaid, is distinctive in each species except for a conserved region of approximately 80 bp. Some members of the mermaid family were found in transposon-like repetitive elements, including Tcl-like elements which were also distributed in the genomes of fish and amphibian. This raises the possibility of horizontal transfer of the mermaid family between vertebrates via transposons.
authors.affiliation: Division of Cellular Communication, National Institute for Basic Biology, Nishigonaka, Okazaki, Japan.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Shimoda
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chevrette
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ekker
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kikuchi
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hotta
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Okamoto
mesh_terms: D000663:Amphibians / Q000235:genetics; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D017931:DNA Primers / Q000235:genetics; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005399:Fishes / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D011323:Primates / Q000235:genetics; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D013045:Species Specificity; D014714:Vertebrates / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements