[Features of the structural organization of the MDG1 retrotransposon of Drosophila, revealed during its sequencing].

The two long open reading frames (ORF1 and ORF2) have been identified in the primary structure of the full-length copy of mdg1 Drosophila retrotransposon by the sequence analysis. These two partially overlapping frames code for the necessary information for transposition through the reverse transcription mechanism. There are unusually long leader and terminal regions in mdg1. The leader area contains two small open reading frames. One of them includes the information of a polypeptide with the typical zinc-binding region. Long oligo (dA) sequences separate the small ORFs from each other and from the long ORFs. Considerable homology between the MDG1 and 412 mobile elements has been detected by comparative analysis of their sequences. The common ancestor of these two elements is postulated.