Genomic alterations upon integration of zebrafish L1 elements revealed by the TANT method

Transposable elements, or transposons, constitute substantial portions of eukaryotic genomes and have contributed to the diversity and functions of the genomes. Bioinformatic analysis of target junctions of genomic transposon copies can provide insights into their mobility mechanisms and consequent genomic alterations, but definitive identification of the target junctions remains difficult despite the steady accumulation of genomic sequence information. To overcome this difficulty, we recently developed a method termed “the target analysis of nested transposons” (TANT), which anatomizes junction features of numerous genomic copies of transposons that reside within other transposons. Whereas the mammalian long interspersed nuclear element (LINE)-1 (L1), a retrotransposon, has been proposed to make a considerable impact on host genomes, the mobility and impact of non-mammalian L1s are poorly understood. In the present study, we analyzed genomic copies of zebrafish L1 elements by using the TANT method. Some copies exhibited the features of integration that are similar to those of mammalian L1s. The zebrafish L1 retrotransposition reaction, however, frequently truncated the target-site DNA by up to 0.6 kb and produced a new sequence at LINE–target junctions. Moreover, our data suggest that L1 retrotransposition can be used to repair double-strand DNA breaks (DSBs). These results imply that L1s have had considerable impact on the evolution of the zebrafish genome.