New nucleic acid or transposable element with transposon activity, useful for mutagenesis purposes or in identifying, cloning and sequencing of novel transposons from Aspergillus fumigatus

NOVELTY - A new nucleic acid or transposable element comprises 1, 2 or more regions, where each region comprises a sequence of 1882, 1541 or 7564 base pairs fully defined in the specification (SEQ ID NOS: 1, 3 and 8, respectively), a sequence having at least 50 % identity with it, or a sequence of at least 50 bases which is a fragment of them, is new. The nucleic acid, transposable element or sequence optionally has transposon activity. USE - The composition and methods are useful in mutagenesis purposes or in identifying, cloning and sequencing of novel transposons from Aspergillus fumigatus. DETAILED DESCRIPTION - INDEPENDENT CLAIMS are also included for:(1) a protein comprising:(a) a sequence of 556 or 325 amino acids fully defined in the specification (SEQ ID NOS: 2 and 4, respectively);(b) a sequence that has at least 50 % identity with SEQ ID NO: 2 or at least 80 % identity with SEQ ID NO: 4; or(c) a sequence of at least 100 amino acids which is a fragment of (a), where the protein optionally has transposase activity;(2) isolating a transposon from a filamentous fungus;(3) a transposable element isolated by the above method;(4) inactivating a gene in a fungal cell;(5) locating at least one gene essential for the growth of a haploid fungus; and(6) an isolated fungal cell comprising an inactivated gene where the cell is obtainable by the method in (4)