Chapter 13, Problem 7P

Summary Introduction

To analyze:

Explain what evidence suggests that copia elements of fruit flies and Ty elements of yeast are related to RNA-containing viruses.

Introduction:

Retrotransposons are transposable elements found in eukaryotic genomes. Retrotransposons are related to RNA containing retroviruses that reverse transcribe their genetic information into DNA. They generally encode at least three genes – gag, pol, and env. All retrotransposons encode reverse transcriptase to catalyze transposition. The genes carried by retrotransposons are flanked by long terminal repeats. The retrotransposons help RNA virus to integrate into eukaryotic DNA genome.