Drosophila telomeric protein Verrocchio is an ortholog of STN1.

In most Eukaryota, telomeres are protected by the CST complex, composed of CTC1, STN1 and TEN1. In Drosophila, instead, another complex is present, composed of Modigliani, Tea and Verrocchio. We performed a search for STN1 orthologs in Arthropoda, in order to verify if Verrocchio can be considered as such. We found that STN1 in Arthropoda is shorter than in other Metazoa and shares the same architecture with Verrocchio. Despite high sequence divergence between human and Drosophila, we have discovered that Verrocchio is an ortholog of STN1.