Element:Blastopia

Description Blastopia is a LTR retrotransposon described in Drosophila melanogaster, the expression of this element plays a role in gene control (Frommer, Schuh and Jackle 1994). Blastopia belongs, along with other Ty3/Gypsy LTR retrotransposons, to Micropia/mdg3 clade (Malik and Eickbush 1999). The genomic structure of Blastopia is 5.4 Kb in size including LTRs of 277 nt. The internal region of this element displays a Primer Binding Site (PBS) complementary to tRNAPro, a single Open Reading Frame (ORF) coding for a gag-pol polyprotein, and a Polypurine Tract (PPT) adjacent to the 3´LTR (Frommer, Schuh and Jackle 1994). Structure Figure not to scale. If present, long terminal repeats (LTRs) have been highlighted in blue. Amino acid motifs noted with lines indicate the conserved residues in each protein domain, abbreviations below mean: MA=matrix PR=protease DU or DUT=dUTPase TM=transmembrane TAV or IBMP=transactivator/viroplasmin or inclusion body matrix protein CA=capsid RT=reverse transcriptase INT=Integrase CHR=chromodomain NC=nucleocapsid RH=RNaseH SU=surface MOV=movement protein PPT=polypurine tract PBS=primer binding site ATF=aphid transmission factor VAP=virion associated protein Related literature Mobile DNA II. (Craig et al. 2002)

Genbank accession: Z27119 Clade: Micropia/Mdg3 Cluster or genus: Undetermined Branch or class: Branch 2 Family: Ty3/Gypsy System: LTR retroelements Host: Explore the Tree Life Project Drosophila melanogaster Image, courtesy of Andreas Trepte, Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics Browse all elements