title: Essential domains for ribonucleoprotein complex formation required for retrotransposition of telomere-specific non-long terminal repeat retrotransposon SART1.
abstract: Non-long terminal repeat (LTR) retrotransposons are major components of the higher eukaryotic genome. Most of them have two open reading frames (ORFs): ORF2 encodes mainly the endonuclease and reverse transcriptase domains, but the functional features of ORF1 remain largely unknown. We used telomere-specific non-LTR retrotransposon SART1 in Bombyx mori and clarified essential roles of the ORF1 protein (ORF1p) in ribonucleoprotein (RNP) formation by novel approaches: in vitro reconstitution and in vivo/in vitro retrotransposition assays using the baculovirus expression system. Detailed mutation analyses showed that each of the three CCHC motifs at the ORF1 C terminus are essential for SART1 retrotransposition and are involved in packaging the SART1 mRNA specifically into RNP. We also demonstrated that amino acid residues 555 to 567 and 285 to 567 in the SART1 ORF1p are crucial for the ORF1p-ORF1p and ORF1p-ORF2p interactions, respectively. The loss of these domains abolishes protein-protein interaction, leading to SART1 retrotransposition deficiency. These data suggest that systematic formation of RNP composed of ORF1p, ORF2p, and mRNA is mainly mediated by ORF1p domains and is a common, essential step for many non-LTR retrotransposons encoding the two ORFs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrated Biosciences, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, University of Tokyo, Bioscience Bldg. 501, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8562, Japan.
authors.forename: Takumi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Matsumoto
authors.forename: Mitsuhiro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hamada
authors.forename: Mizuko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Osanai
authors.forename: Haruhiko
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Fujiwara
mesh_terms: D020816:Amino Acid Motifs; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D012831:Bombyx / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D019476:Insect Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation; D016366:Open Reading Frames / Q000235:genetics; D025941:Protein Interaction Mapping; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000378:metabolism; D018626:Retroelements / Q000235:genetics; D012261:Ribonucleoproteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D016615:Telomere / Q000378:metabolism*; D020079:Terminal Repeat Sequences
chemical_list: D019476:Insect Proteins; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D018626:Retroelements; D012261:Ribonucleoproteins