Transcripts of Newt Satellite DNA Self-cleave In Vitro
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Excerpt
The eastern newt, Notophthalmus viridescens, has an abundant supply of material for studying the evolution and function of repetitive DNA. The haploid genome of this organism contains 45 pg of DNA, approximately 15 times the amount in the human genome. Much of the newt genome consists of repetitive sequences, some of which exist as tandemly repeated “satellite” DNA. Two satellite sequences from the newt have been studied in detail; these have been named satellite 1 and satellite 2.
The organization and transcription of satellite 1 have been described previously (Diaz et al. 1981; Gall et al. 1983). Tandem repeats of this 220-bp sequence are localized mainly to pericentric heterochromatin on each of the 11 newt chromosomes. This sequence is transcribed on lampbrush chromosomes during oogenesis, probably as a result of “readthrough” from nearby histone gene clusters. However, this transcription does not result in the accumulation of discrete satellite-1 transcripts (K....
