HorizontalSPINning of transposons

Abstract

The term 'horizontal transfer (HT)' refers to the transfer of genetic material between two reproductively isolated organisms. HT is thought to occur rarely in eukaryotes compared to vertical inheritance, the transmission of DNA from parent to offspring. In a recent study we have provided evidence that a family of DNA transposons, called SPACE INVADERS or SPIN, independently invaded horizontally the genome of seven distantly related tetrapod species and subsequently amplified to high copy number in each of them. This discovery calls for further investigations to better characterize the extent to which genomes have been shaped through HT events. In this addendum, we briefly discuss some general issues regarding the study of HT and further speculate on the sequence of events that could explain the current taxonomic distribution of SPIN. We propose that the presence of SPIN in the opossum (Monodelphis domestica), a taxon endemic to South America, reflects a transoceanic HT event that occurred from Old to New World, between 46 and 15 million years ago.

Jumping the fine LINE between species: Horizontal transfer of transposable elements in animals catalyses genome evolution

“…A). They were also able to increase the geographic range of SPIN HTs: earlier estimates placed the HT events in Africa, Eurasia and South America, but with these results it seems feasible that there was at least one transoceanic transfer extending to North America and possibly Asia (Fig. ).…”

Transposable Elements in Reptilian and Avian (Sauropsida) Genomes

“…It is important to note that Helitrons in the Anolis genome show no similarity to vertebrate Helitrons but a high level of sequence conservation ( 1 60% amino acid identity) with insect Helitrons, indicating a possible horizontal transfer of these elements into the Anolis genome [Kordis, unpublished data]. Recently, horizontal transfer of hAT transposons in land vertebrates, including mammals and Anolis lizard, has been reported [Pace et al, 2008;Gilbert et al, 2009;Novick et al, 2010]. These data show numerous horizontal transfers of DNA transposons in diverse sauropsid genomes.…”

“…Endogenous retroviruses of diverse sauropsids have also been analyzed extensively during the last decade [Martin et al, 2002;Gifford et al, 2003Gifford et al, , 2005Wicker et al, 2005;Huda et al, 2008]. The very few studies on the DNA transposons included sauropsid data, such as mariner in Anolis [Sinzelle et al, 2006] and chicken [Wicker et al, 2005], horizontal transfer of hAT DNA transposons [Pace et al, 2008;Gilbert et al, 2009;Novick et al, 2010], Helitron in Anolis Piskurek et al, 2009] and Polinton/Maverick from tuatara [Kapitonov and Jurka, 2006;Pritham et al, 2007].…”

On the transposon origins of mammalian SCAND3 and KRBA2, two zinc-finger genes carrying an integrase/transposase domain

“…GINGER2 and related elements are summarized in blue, while those of Buster elements are in green and SCAND3 and KRBA2 are red. To implement information about Spin/Buster transposons based on the survey of distinct works 29 , 39 - 43 or performed distinct BLASTp or tBLASTn searches 28 to the NCBI 10 non-redundant (NR), genomic, WGS and high throughput genomic (HTGS) databases.…”