Title
Experimentally evolving Drosophila erecta populations may fail to establish an effective piRNA based host defense against invading P-elements
Language
English
Description (en)
To prevent the spread of transposable elements (TEs), hosts have developed sophisticated defense mechanisms. In mammals and invertebrates, a major defense mechanism operates through PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs). To investigate the establishment of the host defense, we introduced the P-element, one of the most widely studied eukaryotic transposons, into naive lines of Drosophila erecta We monitored the invasion in three replicates for more than 50 generations by sequencing the genomic DNA (using short and long reads), the small RNAs, and the transcriptome at regular intervals. A piRNA-based host defense was rapidly established in two replicates (R1, R4) but not in a third (R2), in which P-element copy numbers kept increasing for over 50 generations. We found that the ping-pong cycle could not be activated in R2, although the ping-pong cycle is fully functional against other TEs. Furthermore, R2 had both insertions in piRNA clusters and siRNAs, suggesting that neither of them is sufficient to trigger the host defense. Our work shows that control of an invading TE requires activation of the ping-pong cycle and that this activation is a stochastic event that may fail in some populations, leading to a proliferation of TEs that ultimately threaten the integrity of the host genome.
Keywords (en)
Animals; RNA, Small Interfering Genetics; DNA Transposable Elements; Drosophila Genetics; Piwi-Interacting RNA
DOI
10.1101/gr.278706.123
Author of the digital object
Divya  Selvaraju  (University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna)
Filip  Wierzbicki  (University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna)
Robert  Kofler  (University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna)
Format
application/pdf
Size
6.1 MB
Licence Selected
CC BY 4.0 International
Type of publication
Article
Name of Publication (en)
Genome Research
Pages or Volume
16
Volume
34
Number
3
From Page
410
To Page
425
Publisher
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
Publication Date
2024
Content
Details
Object type
PDFDocument
Format
application/pdf
Created
06.09.2024 09:23:05
This object is in collection
Metadata
University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna (Vetmeduni Vienna) | Veterinärplatz 1 | A-1210 Vienna | Austria | T +43 1 25077-0