Inverted Alurepeats unstable in yeast are excluded from the human genome

The nearly one million Alu repeats in human chromosomes are a potential threat to genome integrity. Alus form dense clusters where they frequently appear as inverted repeats, a sequence motif known to cause DNA rearrangements in model organisms. Using a yeast recombination system, we found that inve...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The EMBO journal 2000-07, Vol.19 (14), p.3822
Main Authors: Lobachev, Kirill S, Stenger, Judith E, Kozyreva, Olga G, Jurka, Jerzy, Gordenin, Dmitry A, Resnick, Michael A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chromosomes
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
Yeasts
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The nearly one million Alu repeats in human chromosomes are a potential threat to genome integrity. Alus form dense clusters where they frequently appear as inverted repeats, a sequence motif known to cause DNA rearrangements in model organisms. Using a yeast recombination system, we found that inverted Alu pairs can be strong initiators of genetic instability. The highly recombinagenic potential of inverted Alu pairs was dependent on the distance between the repeats and the level of sequence divergence. Even inverted Alus that were 86% homologous could efficiently stimulate recombination when separated by
ISSN:0261-4189
1460-2075