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Prevalence of full-size P and KP elements in North American populations of Drosophila melanogaster

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Abstract

The P transposable element invaded the Drosophila melanogaster genome in the middle of the twentieth century, probably from D. willistoni in the Caribbean or southeastern North America. P elements then spread rapidly and became ubiquitous worldwide in wild populations of D. melanogaster by 1980. To study the dynamics and long-term fate of transposable genetic elements, we examined the molecular profile of genomic P elements and the phenotype in the P–M system of the current North American natural populations collected in 2001–2003. We found that full-size P and KP elements were the two major size classes of P elements present in the genomes of all populations (“FP + KP predominance”) and that the P-related phenotypes had largely not changed since the 1980s. Both FP + KP predominance and phenotypic stability were also seen in other populations from other continents. As North American populations did not show many KP elements in earlier samples, we hypothesize that KP elements have spread and multiplied in the last 20 years in North America. We suggest that this may be due to a transpositional advantage of KP elements, rather than to a role in P-element regulation.

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Acknowledgments

We thank A. Mooers, B. Harr, L. Yampolsky, D. Ohmes, T. Markow, S. Castrezana, L. Reed, and J. Birdsley for providing their freshly established fly lines.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Biology, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8585, Japan

    Masanobu Itoh, Noriko Takeuchi & Masamitsu Yamaguchi

  2. Insect Biomedical Research Center, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8585, Japan

    Masanobu Itoh & Masamitsu Yamaguchi

  3. Drosophila Genetic Resource Center, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Ukyo-ku, Kyoto, 616-8354, Japan

    Masa-Toshi Yamamoto & Ian A. Boussy

  4. Department of Biology, Loyola University, 6525 N. Sheridan Road, Chicago, IL, 60626, USA

    Ian A. Boussy

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  1. Masanobu Itoh
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  2. Noriko Takeuchi
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  3. Masamitsu Yamaguchi
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  4. Masa-Toshi Yamamoto
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  5. Ian A. Boussy
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Correspondence to Masanobu Itoh.

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Itoh, M., Takeuchi, N., Yamaguchi, M. et al. Prevalence of full-size P and KP elements in North American populations of Drosophila melanogaster . Genetica 131, 21–28 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10709-006-9109-2

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