Departamento de Física e Informática, Instituto de Física de São Carlos, Universidade de São Paulo, 13566-590 São Carlos, SP, Brazil.
Parasitology. 2011 Aug;138(9):1124-33. doi: 10.1017/S0031182011000886. Epub 2011 Jul 15.
Transposons of the Mutator superfamily have been widely described in plants, but only recently have metazoan organisms been shown to harbour them. In this work we describe novel Mutator superfamily transposons from the genomes of the human parasites Schistosoma mansoni and S. japonicum, which we name Curupira-1 and Curupira-2. Curupira elements do not have Terminal Inverted Repeats (TIRs) at their extremities and generate Target Site Duplications (TSDs) of 9 base pairs. Curupira-2 transposons code for a conserved transposase and SWIM zinc finger domains, while Curupira-1 elements comprise these same domains plus a WRKY zinc finger. Alignment of transcript sequences from both elements back to the genomes indicates that they are subject to splicing to produce mature transcripts. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that these transposons represent a new lineage of metazoan Mutator-like elements with characteristics that are distinct from the recently described Phantom elements. Description of these novel schistosome transposons provides new insights in the evolution of transposable elements in schistosomes.
转座子的Mutator 超家族已被广泛描述在植物中，但最近才发现后生动物也拥有它们。在这项工作中，我们从人类寄生虫曼氏血吸虫和日本血吸虫的基因组中描述了新型 Mutator 超家族转座子，我们将其命名为 Curupira-1 和 Curupira-2。Curupira 元件在其末端没有末端反向重复（TIRs），并产生 9 个碱基对的靶序列重复（TSD）。Curupira-2 转座子编码一个保守的转座酶和 SWIM 锌指结构域，而 Curupira-1 元件包含这些相同的结构域加上一个 WRKY 锌指。从这两个元件的转录本序列回推到基因组表明，它们经过剪接以产生成熟的转录本。系统发育分析表明，这些转座子代表后生动物 Mutator 样元件的一个新谱系，其特征与最近描述的 Phantom 元件明显不同。这些新型血吸虫转座子的描述为血吸虫中转座元件的进化提供了新的见解。
