Phylogenetic Analysis of a Retroposon Family in African Great Apes

The SINE-R retroposon family has been identified by its relationship with the long terminal repeats (LTRs) of human endogenous retrovirus class K (HERV-K) as a mobile element that has evolved recently in the human genome. Here we examined the recent evolutionary history of this class of elements by a PCR approach to genomic DNA from the African great apes and by phylogenetic analysis including comparison with the HERV K10 parent sequence. With primers derived from a cDNA sequence from human brain, we identified 27 sequences from the chimpanzee and 16 from the gorilla. Phylogenetic comparisons with previously recognized sequences from the human and from the orangutan and gibbon revealed wide overlap of elements across species, suggesting multiple origins in the course of hominoid evolution. Two human elements SINE-R.C2 and HS307 were the furthest removed from the HERV-K10 sequence but these two elements were closely related to three elements from the chimpanzee and four elements from the gorilla. This group of elements (our clusters 14 and 15) appears to have transposed late in hominoid evolution. One element (Ch-M16) showed 99.1% sequence identity with the SINE-R.C2 element, which is human-specific. Thus the SINE-R family appears to have continued to be active in transposition throughout the course of primate evolution. Received: 12 March 1999 / Accepted: 25 May 1999