The internally located telomeric sequences in the germ-line chromosomes of Tetrahymena are at the ends of transposon-like elements.

The germ-line micronuclear genome of the ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila contains approximately 10(2) chromosome-internal blocks of tandemly repeated C4A2 sequences (mic C4A2). This repeated sequence is the telomeric sequence in the somatic macronucleus. Each of six cloned micC4A2 was found to be adjacent to a conserved 30 bp sequence, which we propose is the terminal inverted repeat of a family of DNA elements (the Tel-1 family). This 30 bp sequence contains a site for the infrequently cutting restriction enzyme Bst XI, which allows full-length Tel-1 elements to be cut out of the micronuclear genome. BAL 31 exonuclease digestion of Bst XI-cut micronuclear DNA showed the majority of micC4A2 blocks to be associated with the ends of the Tel-1 family. We propose that Tel-1 elements are transposable and suggest a novel mechanism to account for the origin of micC4A2, in which telomeric repeats are added to the ends of free linear forms of the transposable elements prior to reintegration.