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Brief Communication

Nature Genetics 33, 123–124 (1 February 2003) | doi:10.1038/ng1074

Retroelements containing introns in diverse invertebrate taxa

Irina R. Arkhipova , Konstantin I. Pyatkov , Matthew Meselson & Michael B. Evgen'ev

We report that two structurally similar transposable elements containing reverse transcriptase (RT), Penelope in Drosophila virilis and Athena in bdelloid rotifers, have proliferated as copies containing introns. The ability of Penelope-like elements (PLEs) to retain introns, their separate phylogenetic placement and their peculiar structural features make them a novel class of eukaryotic retroelements.