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Eukaryotic Cell, July 2007, p. 1228-1238, Vol. 6, No. 7
1535-9778/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/EC.00036-07
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

New Trypanosoma cruzi Repeated Element That Shows Site Specificity for Insertion{triangledown}

Renata T. Souza,1 Márcia R. M. Santos,1 Fábio M. Lima,1 Najib M. El-Sayed,2,{dagger} Peter J. Myler,3 Jeronimo C. Ruiz,4 and José Franco da Silveira1*

Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Parasitology, Escola Paulista de Medicina, UNIFESP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil,1 The Institute for Genomic Research, Rockville, Maryland,2 Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, Seattle, Washington 98109,3 Rene Rachou Research Center/CPqRR, FIOCRUZ, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil4

Received 30 January 2007/ Accepted 9 May 2007

A new family of site-specific repeated elements identified in Trypanosoma cruzi, which we named TcTREZO, is described here. TcTREZO appears to be a composite repeated element, since three subregions may be defined within it on the basis of sequence similarities with other T. cruzi sequences. Analysis of the distribution of TcTREZO in the genome clearly indicates that it displays site specificity for insertion. Most TcTREZO elements are flanked by conserved sequences. There is a highly conserved 68-bp sequence at the 5' end of the element and a sequence domain of ~500 bp without a well-defined borderline at the 3' end. Northern blot hybridization and reverse transcriptase PCR analyses showed that TcTREZO transcripts are expressed as oligo(A)-terminated transcripts whose length corresponds to the unit size of the element (1.6 kb). Transcripts of ~0.2 kb derived from a small part of TcTREZO are also detected in steady-state RNA. TcTREZO transcripts are unspliced and not translated. The copy number of TcTREZO sequences was estimated to be ~173 copies per haploid genome. TcTREZO appears to have been assembled by insertions of sequences into a progenitor element. Once associated with each other, these subunits were amplified as a new transposable element. TcTREZO shows site specificity for insertion, suggesting that a sequence-specific endonuclease could be responsible for its insertion at a unique site.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Parasitology, Escola Paulista de Medicina, UNIFESP, Rua Botucatu, 862, CEP 04023-062, São Paulo, Brazil. Phone and fax: 55-11-55711095. E-mail: franco{at}ecb.epm.br

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 25 May 2007.

{dagger} Present address: Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742.

Eukaryotic Cell, July 2007, p. 1228-1238, Vol. 6, No. 7
1535-9778/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/EC.00036-07
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





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