title: Cloning and characterization of Leishmania donovani telomeres.
abstract: We describe here the cloning and sequence characterization of the absolute termini of several telomeres from the human parasite Leishmania donovani using a vector-adapter protocol. The 3' protruding strand of L. donovani telomeres terminates with the sequence 5'-GGTTAGGGT-OH 3'. This single-stranded sequence is adjacent to tandemly repeated blocks of double-stranded sequence consisting of variable numbers of the hexameric repeat 5'-TAGGGT-3', variable numbers of an octameric repeat 5'-TGGTCATG-3', and a single 62-bp sequence, in that order. A number of additional, more chromosome-internal, nonrepeated sequences were found adjacent to the telomere sequences. Hybridization analyses indicated that some of these telomere adjacent sequences are found on all L. donovani chromosomes, some are more abundant on certain subsets of chromosomes, and some are unique to individual chromosomes.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Biología Experimental, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas.
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Chiurillo
authors.forename: A E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Beck
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Devos
authors.forename: P J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Myler
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Stuart
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Ramirez
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D015139:Blotting, Southern; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D016054:DNA, Protozoan / Q000737:chemistry*; D005822:Genetic Vectors; D007893:Leishmania donovani / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D015345:Oligonucleotide Probes / Q000737:chemistry; D020080:Tandem Repeat Sequences; D016615:Telomere / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D016054:DNA, Protozoan; D015345:Oligonucleotide Probes