ITm Active Transposons and Analysis of Its Structural Characteristics

Abstract: The ITm transposons superfamily is one of the most widespread transposons in eukaryotic organisms among DNA transposons. They jump in the host genome by the “cut-and-paste” mechanism via a DNA intermediate， which results in recombination and mutation of host genome. More and more ITm transposons have been developed to the genetics tool for gene cloning， gene expression and functional analysis. We comprehensively investigated characteristics of the active ITm transposons， including their structures， copy numbers， distributions and transposition characteristics. The features of HTH (helix-turn-helix) domain， DDD/E (Asp-Asp-Asp/Glu) catalytic domain， Linker， the NLS (nuclear localization sequence) and the TIRs (terminal inverted repeats) sequence were characterized. The results show that only the ITm transposons which have complete transposase structure and TIRs sequence could independent transpose in the host genome. The modifications of above mentioned domains of transposases and TIRs sequence would regulate the activity of transposons. This study would lay the foundation not only for the identification and functional analysis of ITm transposons， but also for artificial regulation of transposition activity of these elements.

CSTR: 32200.14.cjcb.2016.01.0016