The view has been growing that eukaryotic genomes are """"""""fluid"""""""" in the sense that mobile elements are frequently inserted and deleted. The study of the molecular biology of mobile DNA sequences will lead towards an understanding of the functional and evolutionary importance of the apparrently frequent events of DNA sequence rearrangement. We propose to examine the mobility of DNA sequences in eukaryotic species which exhibit typical genome organization including the interspersion of many short repeats throughout the single copy DNA. We propose to search for families of mobile elements in the human and sea urchin genomes and examine their primary sequences and characteristics as well as their relationship to interspersed repeated sequences. We propose to measure the number of families of mobile ssequences and the rates of transposition and thus estimate the global effects of mobility on the genomes. While current techniques will permit progress towards this goal we also propose to develop new techniques for rapid measurement of mobility. Sea urchin repeats contain short sequences with homology to viral enhancer sequences which appear to be statistically significant. As a part of this proposal we plan to test the function of these enhancer-like sequences using a sea urchin DNA transformation system recently developed in this laboratory. We propose to transform sea urchins with gene regions plus or minus inserts of the enhancer-like sequence and measure the effect on rates of transcription and timing of expression during development.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01GM034031-04
Application #
3284426
Study Section
Molecular Biology Study Section (MBY)
Project Start
1984-09-14
Project End
1989-08-31
Budget Start
1987-09-01
Budget End
1988-08-31
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
1987
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
California Institute of Technology
Department
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
078731668
City
Pasadena
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
91125
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Britten, R J (1990) Comment on DNA hybridization issues raised at Lake Arrowhead. J Mol Evol 30:193-5
Britten, R J; Stout, D B; Davidson, E H (1989) The current source of human Alu retroposons is a conserved gene shared with Old World monkey. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 86:3718-22
Britten, R J; Baron, W F; Stout, D B et al. (1988) Sources and evolution of human Alu repeated sequences. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 85:4770-4
Britten, R J (1986) Rates of DNA sequence evolution differ between taxonomic groups. Science 231:1393-8
Hwu, H R; Roberts, J W; Davidson, E H et al. (1986) Insertion and/or deletion of many repeated DNA sequences in human and higher ape evolution. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 83:3875-9