Mermaid: a family of short interspersed repetitive elements widespread in vertebrates.

We have discovered a family of short interspersed repetitive elements (SINEs) that are present in the genomes of fish, amphibian and primates. The family of the SINEs, designated mermaid, is distinctive in each species except for a conserved region of approximately 80 bp. Some members of the mermaid family were found in transposon-like repetitive elements, including Tcl-like elements which were also distributed in the genomes of fish and amphibian. This raises the possibility of horizontal transfer of the mermaid family between vertebrates via transposons.