title: Qualitative and Quantitative Assays of Transposition and Homologous Recombination of the Retrotransposon Tf1 in Schizosaccharomyces pombe.
abstract: Transposition and homologous recombination assays are valuable genetic tools to measure the production and integration of cDNA from the long terminal repeat (LTR) retrotransposon Tf1 in the fission yeast (Schizosaccharomyces pombe). Here we describe two genetic assays, one that measures the transposition activity of Tf1 by monitoring the mobility of a drug resistance marked Tf1 element expressed from a multi-copy plasmid and another assay that measures homologous recombination between Tf1 cDNA and the expression plasmid. While the transposition assay measures insertion of full-length Tf1 cDNA mediated by the transposon integrase, the homologous recombination assay measures levels of cDNA present in the nucleus and is independent of integrase activity. Combined, these assays can be used to systematically screen large collections of strains to identify mutations that specifically inhibit the integration step in the retroelement life cycle. Such mutations can be identified because they reduce transposition activity but nevertheless have wild-type frequencies of homologous recombination. Qualitative assays of yeast patches on agar plates detect large defects in integration and recombination, while the quantitative approach provides a precise method of determining integration and recombination frequencies.
authors.affiliation: Section on Eukaryotic Transposable Elements, Program in Cellular Regulation and Metabolism, The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, 18 Library Dr. room 106, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA.
authors.forename: Maya
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sangesland
authors.affiliation: Section on Eukaryotic Transposable Elements, Program in Cellular Regulation and Metabolism, The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, 18 Library Dr. room 106, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA.
authors.forename: Angela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Atwood-Moore
authors.affiliation: Section on Eukaryotic Transposable Elements, Program in Cellular Regulation and Metabolism, The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, 18 Library Dr. room 106, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA.
authors.forename: Sudhir K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Rai
authors.affiliation: Section on Eukaryotic Transposable Elements, Program in Cellular Regulation and Metabolism, The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, 18 Library Dr. room 106, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA. levinh@mail.nih.gov.
authors.forename: Henry L
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Levin
mesh_terms: D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D016681:Genome, Fungal; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods; D059765:Homologous Recombination; D018626:Retroelements; D012568:Schizosaccharomyces; D020079:Terminal Repeat Sequences
chemical_list: D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D018626:Retroelements
keywords: Fission yeast; Homologous recombination assay; LTR-retrotransposon; Quantitative assay; Schizosaccharomyces pombe; Tf1; Transposition assay