Identification and characterization of transposable element-mediated chimeric transcripts from porcine Refseq and EST databases

摘要

Transposable elements are mobile genomic sequences that comprise a large portion of mammalian genomes. The transposable element fusion phenomenon within porcine genes has not yet been reported; therefore, we investigated transposable element fusion genes in the Sus scrofa genome. Porcine transposable element-mediated chimeric transcripts were identified and characterized. Most transposable elements preferentially inserted themselves into an antisense orientation and into the 3' end of porcine genes.The transposable element fusion gene between porcine mRNA and ERV class I, one of the LTR retrotransposons, was not detected. This data will be of great use to further studies focused on a better understanding of the biological function of porcine genesin relation to transposable elements.