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Published May 15, 1989 | Published
Journal Article Open

The current source of human Alu retroposons is a conserved gene shared with Old World monkey

Abstract

A significant fraction of human Alu repeated sequences are members of the precise, recently inserted class. A cloned member of this class has been used as a probe for interspecies hybridization and thermal stability determination. The probe was reassociated with human, mandrill, and spider monkey DNA under conditions such that only almost perfectly matching duplexes could form. Equally precise hybrids were formed with human and mandrill DNA (Old World monkey) but not with spider monkey DNA (New World). These measurements as well as reassociation kinetics show the presence in mandrill DNA of many precise class Alu sequences that are very similar or identical in quantity and sequence to those in human DNA. Human and mandrill are moderately distant species with a single-copy DNA divergence of about 6%. Nevertheless, their recently inserted Alu sequences arise by retroposition of transcripts of source genes with nearly identical sequences. Apparently a gene present in our common ancestor at the time of branching was inherited and highly conserved in sequence in both the lineage of Old World monkeys and the lineage of apes and man.

Additional Information

© 1989 by the National Academy of Sciences. Contributed by Roy J. Britten, February 6, 1989. We thank Dr. G. Trabuchet for the gift of a clone of the Alu sequence recently inserted into gorilla DNA, Dr. J. Jurka for an alignment of GenBank Alu sequences with the precise consensus, Dr. O. Ryder for mandrill and spider monkey tissue, and Drs. E. Zuckerkandl, G. Dover, and E. Meyerowitz for criticism. This work was supported by National Institutes of Health Grant GM34031. The publication costs of this article were defrayed in part by page charge payment. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. §1734 solely to indicate this fact.

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August 22, 2023
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