title: A eukaryotic gene family related to retroelement integrases.
abstract: Proteins encoded by mobile genetic elements occasionally assume cellular roles. Telomerase, for example, is a reverse transcriptase that replicates chromosome ends, and Rag1 is a transposase that mediates immunoglobulin gene rearrangements. In this article, we report cellular genes related to integrases that are not associated with a retrovirus or retrotransposon. These integrases are found in diverse eukaryotes and are evolving under functional constraint. We propose that the cellular integrases have assumed a host role and, like their retroelement counterparts, probably function in DNA metabolism.
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA.
authors.forename: Xiang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Daniel F
authors.initials: DF
authors.lastname: Voytas
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D005057:Eukaryotic Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D019426:Integrases / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D018626:Retroelements / Q000235:genetics*; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D019098:Telomerase / Q000235:genetics; D019895:Transposases
chemical_list: D018626:Retroelements; D019426:Integrases; D019895:Transposases; D019098:Telomerase