A Novel Giant DNA Transpson in Nematostella vectensis

With genome-wide screening of N. vectensis, two new groups of Polinton were identified, beside five Polinton groups deposited in Repbase. The typical N. vectensis Polinton is in length of 15-20kb and has long TIRs with a 6-bp TSDs. it encodes as many as 6 different proteins, including retroviral-like integrase (INT), adenovirus protease (PRO), DNA polymerase B (POLB) and putative ATPase (ATP). These ancient N. vectensis Polinton groups fall to two clades by phylogenetic analysis. One clade evolves evolves to vertebrates together with large scale gene linkage of N. vectensis, another clade following to the evolution of fly and nematode genome.