Isolation of the closed circular form of the transposable element Tc1 in Caenorhabditis elegans

Abstract

The mobilization of Tc1, a transposable element in the genome of the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, has been investigated. Genomic blot hybridization has shown that Tc1 exists in very different numbers in the genomes of two closely related strains of C. elegans^1,2: there are ∼30 copies of Tc1 in the Bristol strain, whereas in the Bergerac strain there are 200–300. Most of these Tc1 elements are structurally highly conserved^1–3 although there exists a second form which contains a HindIII restriction site (Tc1 (Hin) form) and comprises ∼10% of the population⁴. Excision of Tc1 from its chromosomal location in the Bergerac strain is indicated by the presence, on genomic blots, of a minor band corresponding to the size of the uninserted restriction fragment^1,5,6. Here we describe the recovery of extrachromosomal linear and closed circular copies of Tc1 from the Bergerac strain, presumably a result of Tc1 excision.