The variable region of the Trypanosoma brucei kinetoplast maxicircle: sequence and transcript analysis of a repetitive and a non-repetitive fragment

Abstract

The sequence of two fragments derived from the variable region of the kinetoplast maxicircle of Trypanosoma brucei has been determined. One fragment (1334 nucleotides, situated immediately upstream of the 12S and 9S ribosomal RNA genes) consists of non-repetitious DNA, which does not hybridize to other maxicircle regions. The other (844 nt, located between 1.7 and 2.55 kb downstream of the NADH-dehydrogenase subunit 5 gene) contains arrays of repetitive sequences which are also found outside this area. Hybridization analysis suggests that approximately 60% of the remaining part of the divergent region, which has not yet been fully analyzed, consists of similar sequences. Neither segment contains genes for mitochondrial proteins or tRNAs, as judged from computer analysis. This conclusion is supported by the fact that maxicircle DNA of trypanosome species other than T. brucei does not cross-hybridize to either fragment. Northern blot analysis and S1 nuclease experiments demonstrate, however, that both maxicircle regions are transcribed into RNAs of varying length (100–3000 nt), albeit at a low level. The function of these transcripts, that are derived from both DNA strands, and the likely absence of protein and tRNA genes from the variable region of the T. brucei maxicircle is discussed.