Jerzy Jurka
Genetic Information Research Institute, 1190 Eureka Ave., Los Altos, CA 94024
There are three major components of this project: organization of databases of mammalian repetitive sequences; development of specialized software for analysis of repetitive DNA and studies of new mammalian repeats. During the meeting we will report recent progress in all the three areas.
We will demonstrate recent development of the mammalian portion of the database of repetitive elements (repbase).[1] The database is available electronically via internet (ftp ncbi.nlm.nih.gov; login: anonymous, password: your email address). Recent influx of sequence data to GenBank created unprecedented need for annotation of known repetitive elements. We will demonstrate our software for identification and elimination of repetitive DNA (CENSOR), [2] and a new software for Alu subfamily classification, based on the most recent progress in the field.[3,4]
During the last few years over 40 new repetitive families have been reported in the human genome alone. Some of the new repeats turned out to be fragments of ancient L1 subfamilies.[5] This significantly improved our understanding of relationships between different repeats in the human genome. Other GenBank sequence studies revealed very abundant but ancient repeats called MIRs.[6] During the meeting we will report recently discovered families of MEdium Reiteration frequency repeats.[7]
Supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Health and Environmental Research, grants DE-FG03-9llER61152 and DE-FG03-9SER62139.
[1] J. Jurka, Databases of repetitive elements (repbase). NCBI Database Repository: 1993, 1994 and 1995.
[2] J. Jurka, P. Klonowski, V. Dagman and P. Pelton, CENSOR - a program for identification and elimination of repetitive elements from DNA sequences, Computers and Chemistry - special issue, in press.
[3] J. Jurka, The Impact of Short Interspersed Elements (SlNEs) on the Host Genome, ed. Richard J. Maraia, R.G. Landes Company, pp. 25-41 (1995).
[4] V. Kapitonov and J. Jurka, The Age of Alu Subfamilies, J. Mol. Evol., in press.
[5] A.F.A. Smit, G. Toth, A.D. Riggs and J. Jurka, J. Mol. Biol. 246, 401-417(1995).
[6] J. Jurka, E. Zietkiewicz and D. Labuda, Nucl. Acids Res. 23, 170-175 (1995).
[7] J. Jurka, V. Kapitonov, A.F.A Smit, P. Klonowski, Identification of new medium reiteration frequency repeats in the human, rodent and rabbit genomes, in preparation.