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Is the evolution of transposable elements modular?

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Abstract

The evolution of transposable element structures can be analyzed in populations and species and by comparing the functional domains in the main classes of elements. We begin with a synthesis of what we know about the evolution of the mariner elements in the Drosophilidae family in terms of populations and species. We suggest that internal deletion does not occur at random, but appears to frequently occur between short internal repeats. We compared the functional domains of the DNA and/or amino acid sequences to detect similarities between the main classes of elements. This included the gag, reverse transcriptase, and envelope genes of retrotransposons and retroviruses, and the integrases of retrotransposons and retroviruses, and transposases of class II elements. We find that each domain can have its own evolutionary history. Thus, the evolution of transposable elements can be seen to be modular.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Populations, Génétique et Evolution, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 91198, Gif/Yvette Cedex, France

    Emmanuelle Lerat, Frédéric Brunet, Claude Bazin & Pierre Capy

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  1. Emmanuelle Lerat
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  2. Frédéric Brunet
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  3. Claude Bazin
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  4. Pierre Capy
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Correspondence to Pierre Capy.

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Lerat, E., Brunet, F., Bazin, C. et al. Is the evolution of transposable elements modular?. Genetica 107, 15–25 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1004026821539

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