Isolation of cDNA including a reverse transcriptase-like sequence transcribed from the long interspersed repetitive DNA sequence of rat.

The mammalian genome congains long interspersed repetitive sequences, but the role of these repetitive sequence is not clear. A cDNA clone has been isolated that contains part of the L1 sequences from a cDNA library of rat liver. The DNA sequence analysis showed the homology of cDNA to several reverse transcriptases. The homology between the amino acid sequences predicted from L1 consensus sequences and reverse transcriptases has been reported previously. However, this is the first isolation of a cDNA clone containing a reverse transcriptase-like sequence.