A Drosophila protein homologous to the human p70 Ku autoimmune antigen interacts with the P transposable element inverted repeats.

P transposable elements in Drosophila are mobilized via a cut-and-paste mechanism. This mode of transposition requires repair of both a double-strand break at the donor DNA site and gapped DNA at the target site. Biochemical studies have identified a cellular non-P element-encoded DNA binding protein, termed the inverted repeat binding protein (IRBP), that specifically interacts with the outer half of the 31-bp terminal inverted repeats. Protein sequence information was used to isolate cDNA clones encoding IRBP. Sequence analysis shows that IRBP is related to the 70-kDa subunit of the human Ku autoimmune antigen. The mammalian Ku antigen binds free DNA termini and has been implicated in immunoglobulin VDJ recombination, DNA repair, and transcription. In addition, Ku is the DNA binding subunit of the double-strand DNA-dependent protein kinase. Cytogenetic mapping indicates that the IRBP gene maps to chromosomal position 86E on the right arm of the third chromosome.