Institut de Biologie Intégrative et des Systèmes (IBIS), Université Laval, Quebec, Canada.
Département de Biochimie, Microbiologie et Bioinformatique, Université Laval, Quebec, Canada.
Curr Genet. 2021 Aug;67(4):567-572. doi: 10.1007/s00294-021-01169-0. Epub 2021 Mar 18.
Transposable elements (TEs) are ubiquitous mobile genetic elements that hold both disruptive and adaptive potential for species. It has long been postulated that their activity may be triggered by hybridization, a hypothesis that received mixed support from studies in various species. While host defense mechanisms against TEs are being elucidated, the increasing volume of genomic data and bioinformatic tools specialized in TE detection enable in-depth characterization of TEs at the levels of species and populations. Here, I borrow elements from the genome ecology theory to illustrate how knowledge of the diversity of TEs and host defense mechanisms may help predict the activity of TEs in the face of hybridization, and how current limitations make this task especially challenging.
转座元件 (TEs) 是普遍存在的可移动遗传元件，它们对物种具有破坏性和适应性的潜力。长期以来，人们一直假设它们的活性可能是由杂交引发的，这一假说在各种物种的研究中得到了不同程度的支持。虽然针对 TEs 的宿主防御机制正在被阐明，但基因组数据的不断增加和专门用于 TE 检测的生物信息学工具，使得在物种和种群水平上对 TEs 进行深入的特征描述成为可能。在这里，我借鉴了基因组生态学理论的一些元素，来说明了解 TEs 的多样性和宿主防御机制的知识如何有助于预测在杂交过程中 TEs 的活性，以及当前的局限性如何使这项任务特别具有挑战性。
