L1 (LINE-1) retrotransposable elements provide a "fossil" record of the phylogenetic history of murid rodents |
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Authors: | Usdin K; Chevret P; Catzeflis FM; Verona R; Furano AV |
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Institution: | Section on Genomic Structure and Function, National Institute of Diabetes and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892. |
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Abstract: | The single most difficult problem in phylogenetic analysis is deciding
whether a shared taxonomic character is due to common ancestry or one that
appeared independently due to convergence, parallelism, or reversion to an
ancestral state. Mammalian L1 retrotransposons undergo periodic
amplifications in which multiple copies of the elements are interspersed in
the genome. Because these elements apparently are transmitted only by
inheritance and are retained in the genome, a shared L1 amplification event
can only be an inherited ancestral character. We propose that L1
amplification events can be an excellent tool for analyzing mammalian
evolution and demonstrate here how we addressed several refractory problems
in rodent systematics using L1 DNA as a taxonomic character.
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