Chen Jingxuan, Garfinkel David J, Bergman Casey M
Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Georgia, 120 E. Green St., Athens, GA, USA.
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Georgia, 120 E. Green St., Athens, GA, USA.
Genome Biol Evol. 2025 Jan 6;17(1). doi: 10.1093/gbe/evaf004.
Horizontal transposon transfer (HTT) plays an important role in the evolution of eukaryotic genomes; however, the detailed evolutionary history and impact of most HTT events remain to be elucidated. To better understand the process of HTT in closely related microbial eukaryotes, we studied Ty4 retrotransposon subfamily content and sequence evolution across the genus Saccharomyces using short- and long-read whole genome sequence data, including new PacBio genome assemblies for two Saccharomyces mikatae strains. We find evidence for multiple independent HTT events introducing the Tsu4 subfamily into specific lineages of Saccharomyces paradoxus, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Saccharomyces eubayanus, Saccharomyces kudriavzevii and the ancestor of the S. mikatae/Saccharomyces jurei species pair. In both S. mikatae and S. kudriavzevii, we identified novel Ty4 clades that were independently generated through recombination between resident and horizontally transferred subfamilies. Our results reveal that recurrent HTT and lineage-specific extinction events lead to a complex pattern of Ty4 subfamily content across the genus Saccharomyces. Moreover, our results demonstrate how HTT can lead to coexistence of related retrotransposon subfamilies in the same genome that can fuel evolution of new retrotransposon clades via recombination.
水平转座子转移(HTT)在真核生物基因组进化中发挥着重要作用;然而,大多数HTT事件的详细进化历史和影响仍有待阐明。为了更好地理解密切相关的微生物真核生物中HTT的过程,我们利用短读长和长读长全基因组序列数据,研究了酿酒酵母属中Ty4逆转录转座子亚家族的含量和序列进化,包括两个米卡塔酵母菌株的新PacBio基因组组装。我们发现有证据表明存在多个独立的HTT事件,这些事件将Tsu4亚家族引入了奇异酿酒酵母、酿酒酵母、真贝酵母、库德里亚夫齐酵母以及米卡塔酵母/朱雷伊酵母物种对的祖先的特定谱系中。在米卡塔酵母和库德里亚夫齐酵母中,我们都鉴定出了通过常驻亚家族和水平转移亚家族之间的重组独立产生的新型Ty4分支。我们的结果表明,反复发生的HTT和谱系特异性灭绝事件导致了酿酒酵母属中Ty4亚家族含量的复杂模式。此外,我们的结果证明了HTT如何导致相关逆转录转座子亚家族在同一基因组中共存,而这可以通过重组推动新逆转录转座子分支的进化。