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. 1982;1(8):977–985. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1982.tb01281.x

Rearrangements of the 5S RNA gene cluster of Drosophila melanogaster associated with the insertion of a B104 element

Christian Tschudi 1,1, Vincenzo Pirrotta 1,*, Nikolaj Junakovic 1,2
PMCID: PMC553145  PMID: 16453428

Abstract

The organization of the 5S RNA gene cluster of Drosophila melanogaster is different in two Oregon R stocks that have been separated for a number of years. The Oregon R Yale population contains various different arrangements of the cluster. One of these is due to the insertion of a B104 element near one end of the cluster. Other arrangements lack the B104 insertion and have instead a variety of deletions originating in the vicinity of the B104 insertion site and removing from 0 to 60% of the 5S RNA genes without affecting nearby tRNA genes. In contrast, the Oregon R Heidelberg population has no B104 element in the 5S gene cluster and no heterogeneity in the arrangement of the cluster. We propose that transposable elements inserted at a genomic locus generate heterogeneity in a population at that locus due to excision of the element with and without accompanying deletions of flanking sequences. As a consequence, a fly population would accumulate a large number of deletions scattered throughout the genome in as many loci as contain transposable elements. We show further that D. melanogaster contains a large redundancy of 5S RNA genes since the 60% deletion of the cluster shows no visible phenotype when homozygous or when heterozygous against a total deletion of the entire 5S gene cluster.

Keywords: Drosophila, 5S RNA genes, transposable elements, deletion formation

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