Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e dell'Ambiente, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Via Brecce Bianche, 60131 Ancona, Italy.
Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Mar 28;24(7):6332. doi: 10.3390/ijms24076332.
TEs are known to be among the main drivers in genome evolution, leading to the generation of evolutionary advantages that favor the success of organisms. The aim of this work was to investigate the TE landscape in bird genomes to look for a possible relationship between the amount of specific TE types and environmental changes that characterized the Oligocene era in Australia. Therefore, the mobilome of 29 bird species, belonging to a total of 11 orders, was analyzed. Our results confirmed that LINE retroelements are not predominant in all species of this evolutionary lineage and highlighted an LTR retroelement dominance in species with an Australian-related evolutionary history. The bird LTR retroelement expansion might have happened in response to the Earth's dramatic climate changes that occurred about 30 Mya, followed by a progressive aridification across most of Australian landmasses. Therefore, in birds, LTR retroelement burst might have represented an evolutionary advantage in the adaptation to arid/drought environments.
转座元件是基因组进化的主要驱动力之一，它们导致了有利于生物成功的进化优势的产生。本工作的目的是研究鸟类基因组中的转座元件景观，以寻找特定转座元件类型的数量与澳大利亚始新世时期特征的环境变化之间的可能关系。因此，分析了属于 11 个目共 29 种鸟类的移动元件。我们的结果证实，LINE 反转录转座子并非在这个进化谱系的所有物种中都占优势，并且在具有澳大利亚相关进化历史的物种中 LTR 反转录转座子占优势。鸟类 LTR 反转录转座子的扩张可能是对大约 3000 万年前地球发生的剧烈气候变化的反应，随后澳大利亚大部分大陆的干旱化逐渐加剧。因此，在鸟类中，LTR 反转录转座子的爆发可能代表了对干旱/干旱环境的适应优势。
