Long INterspersed nuclear Elements (LINEs) in brain and non-brain tissues of the rat

Long INterspersed Element-1 (L1) is a transposable element that can insert copies of itself in new genomic locations causing genomic instability. In somatic cells, L1 retrotransposition activity is usually repressed but somatic L1 retrotransposition has recently been observed during neuronal differentiation. In this study, we evaluate whether L1 elements are differentially active in rat tissues during postnatal development. To this purpose, we quantified L1 in genomic DNA extracted from the olfactory bulb (OB), cerebellum (CE), cortex (CO) and heart (H). Each analysis was repeated on rats aged 7, 21 and 60 days. We found that L1 content in OB and CE tissue was significantly higher than H tissue, in rats of all three ages studied, suggesting that L1 activity could be modulated in postnatal development and neurogenesis.