Journal article
Unistrand piRNA clusters are an evolutionarily conserved mechanism to suppress endogenous retroviruses across the Drosophila genus
- Abstract:
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The PIWI-interacting RNA (piRNA) pathway prevents endogenous genomic parasites, i.e. transposable elements, from damaging the genetic material of animal gonadal cells. Specific regions in the genome, called piRNA clusters, are thought to define each species’ piRNA repertoire and therefore its capacity to recognize and silence specific transposon families. The unistrand cluster flamenco (flam) is essential in the somatic compartment of the Drosophila ovary to restrict Gypsy-family transposons from infecting the neighbouring germ cells. Disruption of flam results in transposon de-repression and sterility, yet it remains unknown whether this silencing mechanism is present more widely. Here, we systematically characterise 119 Drosophila species and identify five additional flam-like clusters separated by up to 45 million years of evolution. Small RNA-sequencing validated these as bona-fide unistrand piRNA clusters expressed in somatic cells of the ovary, where they selectively target transposons of the Gypsy family. Together, our study provides compelling evidence of a widely conserved transposon silencing mechanism that co-evolved with virus-like Gypsy-family transposons.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 3.9MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s41467-023-42787-1
Authors
- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/029chgv08
- Grant:
- 110161/Z/15/Z
- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/054225q67
- Grant:
- G101107
- Publisher:
- Springer Nature
- Journal:
- Nature Communications More from this journal
- Volume:
- 14
- Issue:
- 1
- Article number:
- 7337
- Place of publication:
- England
- Publication date:
- 2023-11-13
- Acceptance date:
- 2023-10-18
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2041-1723
- ISSN:
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2041-1723
- Pmid:
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37957172
- Language:
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English
- Pubs id:
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1574894
- Local pid:
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pubs:1574894
- Deposit date:
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2025-02-19
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- van Lopik et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2023
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2023. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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