Scheinker V S, Lozovskaya E R, Bishop J G, Corces V G, Evgen'ev M B
Institute of Molecular Biology, Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., Moscow.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1990 Dec;87(24):9615-9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.87.24.9615.
A hybrid dysgenesis syndrome similar to those described in Drosophila melanogaster occurs in Drosophila virilis when a laboratory stock is crossed to a wild strain collected in the Batumi region of Georgia (U.S.S.R). Mutations in various loci obtained during these crosses are presumably induced by the insertion of DNA sequences. We have cloned an induced white mutation and characterized the insertion sequence responsible for the mutant phenotype. This sequence is a 10.6-kilobase (kb) transposable element we have named Ulysses. This element is flanked by unusually large 2.1-kb long terminal repeats. Ulysses also contains other landmarks characteristic of the retrotransposon family, such as a tRNA-binding site adjacent to the 5' long terminal repeat and open reading frames encoding putative products with homology to the reverse transcriptase, protease, and integrase domains typical of proteins encoded by vertebrate retroviruses. Some of the mutations obtained do not contain a copy of the Ulysses element at the mutant locus, suggesting that a different transposable element may be responsible for the mutation. Therefore, Ulysses may not be the primary cause of the entire dysgenic syndrome, and its mobilization may be the result of activation by an independent mobile element.
当一个实验室品系与在苏联格鲁吉亚巴统地区采集的野生品系杂交时，果蝇属中的粗壮果蝇会出现一种类似于在黑腹果蝇中所描述的杂种发育异常综合征。在这些杂交过程中获得的各种位点的突变大概是由DNA序列的插入所诱导的。我们克隆了一个诱导产生的白眼突变，并对导致突变表型的插入序列进行了表征。这个序列是一个10.6千碱基（kb）的可转座元件，我们将其命名为尤利西斯。这个元件两侧是异常大的2.1 kb长末端重复序列。尤利西斯还包含反转录转座子家族的其他标志性特征，例如与5'长末端重复序列相邻的一个tRNA结合位点以及编码与脊椎动物逆转录病毒典型的逆转录酶、蛋白酶和整合酶结构域具有同源性的推定产物的开放阅读框。所获得的一些突变在突变位点不包含尤利西斯元件的拷贝，这表明可能是另一种可转座元件导致了该突变。因此，尤利西斯可能不是整个发育异常综合征的主要原因，其移动可能是由一个独立的移动元件激活所致。
