Identification of genes for reverse transcriptase–like enzymes in twoDrosophilaretrotransposons,412 and gypsy; a rapid detection method of reverse transcriptase genes using YXDD box probes

Using synthetic oligonucleotides corresponding to the amino acid sequences best conserved among retroviral reverse transcriptases, we developed a rapid method to detect cloned DNA fragments with the genes for reverse transcriptases. By this technique followed by nucleotide sequence determination, nucleotide sequences coding for reverse transcriptase-like enzymes were identified in two Drosophila r…