Conservation of major and minor jelly-roll capsid proteins in Polinton (Maverick) transposons suggests that they are bona fide viruses.
Polintons (also known as Mavericks) and Tlr elements of Tetrahymena thermophila represent two families of large DNA transposons widespread in eukaryotes. Here, we show that both Polintons and Tlr elements encode two key virion proteins, the major capsid protein with the double jelly-roll fold and the minor capsid protein, known as the penton, with the single jelly-roll topology. This observation along with the previously noted conservation of the genes for viral genome packaging ATPase and adenovirus-like protease strongly suggests that Polintons and Tlr elements combine features of bona fide viruses and transposons. We propose the name 'Polintoviruses' to denote these putative viruses that could have played a central role in the evolution of several groups of DNA viruses of eukaryotes.
Department of Microbiology, Institut Pasteur, Unité Biologie Moléculaire du Gène chez les Extrêmophiles, Paris 75015, France. krupovic@pasteur.fr.
Mart
M
Krupovic
Dennis H
DH
Bamford
Eugene V
EV
Koonin
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D036022:Capsid Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D004267:DNA Viruses / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D016808:Tetrahymena thermophila / Q000821:virology*; D014771:Virion / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
D036022:Capsid Proteins; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements