Figure 1.

Schematic diagram of Himar1 transposase showing notable landmarks, functional domains, and the positions of the hyperactive mutations isolated in this study. The putative DNA-binding domains are based on comparisons to the Tc1 and Tc3 transposases of C. elegans and to computer predictions of Tc1/mariner transposase structures (3, 37, 40). “D” indicates the positions of the catalytic residues of the putative D, D34D catalytic domain. Specific amino acids noted are hyperactive mutations isolated in this study. C9 and A7 refer to clones for those specific mutants as described in the text. NLS refers to the positions of two putative nuclear localization signals (beginning at positions 184 and 243, respectively) as predicted by the program psort (55).