de Freitas Ortiz Mauro, Lorenzatto Karina Rodrigues, Corrêa Bruna Renata Silva, Loreto Elgion Lucio Silva
Curso de Pós-Graduação em Genética, Conservação e Biologia Evolutiva, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Manaus, AM, Brazil.
Genetica. 2010 Jun;138(6):649-55. doi: 10.1007/s10709-010-9439-y. Epub 2010 Feb 4.
Transposable elements (TEs) comprise a significant fraction of the genome, and some models of the TE "life cycle" suggest that, in the last phases of the cycle, TEs should be represented, in the genomes, by inactive and degenerated copies. In this study, we analyzed, using a bioinformatics approach, the autonomous hAT elements and their derivatives (active non-autonomous, MITE relatives and degenerated copies) in 12 Drosophila genomes. We found 28 hAT elements that had derivatives. Most copies had features that suggested that they were active, while only a few degenerated copies were found. Because hAT elements comprise an evolutionarily old superfamily, one should expect to find many degenerated copies within the genome, although this was not observed in our study. These results suggest that primarily active copies of hAT elements are maintained in the euchromatic regions of the genome and that degenerated copies are removed from the genome by natural selection.
转座元件（TEs）占基因组的很大一部分，一些TE“生命周期”模型表明，在周期的最后阶段，基因组中的TE应该由无活性和退化的拷贝来代表。在本研究中，我们使用生物信息学方法分析了12个果蝇基因组中的自主hAT元件及其衍生物（活跃的非自主元件、MITE相关元件和退化拷贝）。我们发现了28个有衍生物的hAT元件。大多数拷贝具有表明它们是活跃的特征，而只发现了少数退化拷贝。由于hAT元件构成了一个进化上古老的超家族，人们应该预期在基因组中会发现许多退化拷贝，尽管在我们的研究中没有观察到这一点。这些结果表明，hAT元件的主要活跃拷贝在基因组的常染色质区域中得以保留，而退化拷贝则通过自然选择从基因组中被清除。
