Selfish DNA in Protein-Coding Genes of Rickettsia
- 13 October 2000
- journal article
- other
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 290 (5490) , 347-350
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.290.5490.347
Abstract
Rickettsia conorii , the aetiological agent of Mediterranean spotted fever, is an intracellular bacterium transmitted by ticks. Preliminary analyses of the nearly complete genome sequence of R. conorii have revealed 44 occurrences of a previously undescribed palindromic repeat (150 base pairs long) throughout the genome. Unexpectedly, this repeat was found inserted in-frame within 19 different R. conorii open reading frames likely to encode functional proteins. We found the same repeat in proteins of other Rickettsia species. The finding of a mobile element inserted in many unrelated genes suggests the potential role of selfish DNA in the creation of new protein sequences.Keywords
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