Scarpa Almorò, Pianezza Riccardo, Gellert Hannah R, Haider Anna, Kim Bernard Y, Lai Eric C, Kofler Robert, Signor Sarah
Institut für Populationsgenetik, Vetmeduni Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Vienna Graduate School of Population Genetics, Vetmeduni Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Nat Commun. 2025 Jan 9;16(1):516. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-55779-6.
Horizontal transfer of genetic material in eukaryotes has rarely been documented over short evolutionary timescales. Here, we show that two retrotransposons, Shellder and Spoink, invaded the genomes of multiple species of the melanogaster subgroup within the last 50 years. Through horizontal transfer, Spoink spread in D. melanogaster during the 1980s, while both Shellder and Spoink invaded D. simulans in the 1990s. Possibly following hybridization, D. simulans infected the island endemic species D. mauritiana (Mauritius) and D. sechellia (Seychelles) with both TEs after 1995. In the same approximate time-frame, Shellder also invaded D. teissieri, a species confined to sub-Saharan Africa. We find that the donors of Shellder and Spoink are likely American Drosophila species from the willistoni, cardini, and repleta groups. Thus, the described cascade of TE invasions could only become feasible after D. melanogaster and D. simulans extended their distributions into the Americas 200 years ago, likely aided by human activity. Our work reveals that cascades of TE invasions, likely initiated by human-mediated range expansions, could have an impact on the genomic and phenotypic evolution of geographically dispersed species. Within a few decades, TEs could invade many species, including island endemics, with distributions very distant from the donor of the TE.
在较短的进化时间尺度上，真核生物中遗传物质的水平转移鲜有记录。在此，我们表明，两个逆转座子Shellder和Spoink在过去50年内侵入了黑腹果蝇亚组多个物种的基因组。通过水平转移，Spoink在20世纪80年代在黑腹果蝇中传播，而Shellder和Spoink在20世纪90年代侵入了拟果蝇。1995年后，拟果蝇可能在杂交后，用这两种转座元件感染了岛屿特有物种毛里求斯果蝇（毛里求斯）和塞舌尔果蝇（塞舌尔）。在大致相同的时间框架内，Shellder也侵入了仅分布于撒哈拉以南非洲的泰氏果蝇。我们发现，Shellder和Spoink的供体可能是来自威氏果蝇组、卡氏果蝇组和复带果蝇组的美洲果蝇物种。因此，所描述的转座元件入侵级联在200年前黑腹果蝇和拟果蝇将其分布扩展到美洲之后才变得可行，这可能得益于人类活动。我们的研究表明，可能由人类介导的分布范围扩张引发的转座元件入侵级联，可能会对地理分布分散的物种的基因组和表型进化产生影响。在几十年内，转座元件可能会侵入许多物种，包括岛屿特有物种，其分布与转座元件的供体相距甚远。
