| First Author | Carlton MB | Year | 1995 |
| Journal | Mamm Genome | Volume | 6 |
| Issue | 2 | Pages | 90-5 |
| PubMed ID | 7767011 | Mgi Jnum | J:22807 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:70695 | Doi | 10.1007/BF00303250 |
| Citation | Carlton MB, et al. (1995) Generation of a pseudogene during retroviral infection. Mamm Genome 6(2):90-5 |
| abstractText | During evolution, up to 10% of the mammalian genome may have arisen by rare retroposition events. This process involves reverse transcription of RNA intermediates that originate from retroviral and retroviral-like sequences, highly and middle repetitive DNA elements, and processed pseudogenes. The mechanism, and contemporary nature, for retrotransposition of the viral family and long interspersed elements has been well studied; however, it has proven difficult to demonstrate that the process by which pseudogenes retropose is continuing. In this report a mutation in the murine hypoxanthine-guanosine phosphoribosyl transferase (hprt) gene, which was previously isolated following retroviral infection of ES cells, is shown to result from a de novo retroposition of an alpha-tubulin pseudogene. Repair of this insertion by homologous recombination restores the activity of the hprt locus, thus confirming the site of mutation. This retroposon bears all the hallmarks of a naturally processed pseudogene [intron loss, presence of a poly(A) tail, and target site duplication] while the retroposition event took place at a known time in well-defined conditions, during retroviral infection of ES cells. The study of this mutation demonstrates that under appropriate conditions pseudogenes of protein-coding genes can still retropose in the mammalian genome. The coincidence of this mutagenic event with retroviral infection suggests that in this situation the reverse transcriptase may have had a retroviral origin, which would implicate a retroviral role in facilitating pseudogene formation. |
