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Science 19 February 1999:
Vol. 283. no. 5405, pp. 1164 - 1167
DOI: 10.1126/science.283.5405.1164
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Reports

Nonmethylated Transposable Elements and Methylated Genes in a Chordate Genome

Martin W. Simmen, 1* Sabine Leitgeb, 1* Jillian Charlton, 1 Steven J. M. Jones, 2 Barbara R. Harris, 2 Victoria H. Clark, 1 Adrian Bird 1dagger

The genome of the invertebrate chordate Ciona intestinalis was found to be a stable mosaic of methylated and nonmethylated domains. Multiple copies of an apparently active long terminal repeat retrotransposon and a long interspersed element are nonmethylated and a large fraction of abundant short interspersed elements are also methylation free. Genes, by contrast, are predominantly methylated. These data are incompatible with the genome defense model, which proposes that DNA methylation in animals is primarily targeted to endogenous transposable elements. Cytosine methylation in this urochordate may be preferentially directed to genes.

1 Institute of Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Edinburgh, The King's Buildings, Edinburgh EH9 3JR, UK.
2 The Sanger Centre, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SA, UK.
*   These authors contributed equally to this work.

dagger    To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: A.Bird{at}ed.ac.uk

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