Interaction of Telomeric Retroelement HeT-A Transcripts and Their Protein Product Gag in Early Embryogenesis of Drosophila

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I. A. Olovnikov, V. V. Morgunova, A. A. Mironova, M. Y. Kordyukova, E. I. Radion, O. M. Olenkina, N. V. Akulenko, and A. I. Kalmykova^*

Institute of Molecular Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, 123182 Moscow, Russia; E-mail: allakalm@img.ras.ru

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received June 30, 2016; Revision received July 4, 2016

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The telomere is a nucleoprotein complex at the ends of linear chromosomes that protects them from fusion and degradation. The telomere consists of telomeric DNA, a protective protein complex and telomeric RNA. Biogenesis of telomeric transcripts in development is still far from being understood. Drosophila telomeres are elongated by a transposition of specialized telomeric retrotransposons that encode proteins. Using transgenic constructs encoding tagged telomeric protein, we found that transcripts of Drosophila telomeric element HeT-A bind Gag-HeT-A protein encoded by these transcripts. Maternal HeT-A transcripts and Gag-HeT-A form ribonucleoprotein granules around centrosomes, centers of microtubule organization, during blastoderm formation, upon disruption of telomere silencing during oogenesis. The specific localization of HeT-A RNA is dependent on microtubules since disruption of microtubules caused delocalization of HeT-A transcripts. This transgenic system is a valuable model for the study of telomeric RNA biogenesis.

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KEY WORDS: telomere, development, retrotransposon HeT-A, Drosophila, telomeric RNA

DOI: 10.1134/S000629791609011X

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