Ludwig A, Loreto E L S
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Genética e Biologia Molecular, Departamento de Genética, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
Genetica. 2007 Jun;130(2):161-8. doi: 10.1007/s10709-006-9003-y. Epub 2006 Aug 4.
The gtwin retrotransposon was recently discovered in the Drosophila melanogaster genome and it is evolutionarily closer to gypsy endogenous retrovirus. This study has identified gtwin homologous sequences in the genome of D. simulans, D. sechellia, D. erecta and D. yakuba by performing homology searches against the public genome database of Drosophila species. The phylogenetic analyses of the gtwin env gene sequences of these species have shown some incongruities with the host species phylogeny, suggesting some horizontal transfer events for this retroelement. Moreover, we reported the existence of DNA sequences putatively encoding full-length Env proteins in the genomes of Drosophila species other than D. melanogaster. The results suggest that the gtwin element may be an infectious retrovirus able to invade the genome of new species, supporting the gtwin evolutionary picture shown in this work.
gtwin逆转座子最近在黑腹果蝇基因组中被发现，并且在进化上更接近吉普赛内源性逆转录病毒。本研究通过对果蝇物种的公共基因组数据库进行同源性搜索，在拟果蝇、塞舌尔果蝇、 erecta果蝇和雅库巴果蝇的基因组中鉴定出了gtwin同源序列。对这些物种的gtwin env基因序列进行的系统发育分析显示，与宿主物种的系统发育存在一些不一致，这表明这种逆转座元件发生了一些水平转移事件。此外，我们报道了在除黑腹果蝇之外的果蝇物种基因组中存在推测编码全长Env蛋白的DNA序列。结果表明，gtwin元件可能是一种能够侵入新物种基因组的传染性逆转录病毒，支持了本研究中所示的gtwin进化图景。
