Disertation Research: Adaptive Response to Transposable Element Invasion

论文研究：对转座元件入侵的适应性反应

• 批准号: 1010872
• 负责人: Charles Langley
• 金额: $ 1.48万
• 依托单位: University of California-Davis
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-06-01 至 2012-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1010872&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Disertation; Research; Adaptive; Response; Transposable

Transposable elements (TEs) are small DNA sequences that increase their number in host genomes by replicative transposition (moving between different parts of the genome). Because of their negative fitness impacts on hosts, TEs are considered as genomic parasites and their interaction with host genomes is a fundamental and ubiquitous class of host-parasite coevolution. Even though happening infrequently, invasion of TEs into new hosts is expected to reveal a large evolutionary impact on host genomes over a short period because of the high rates of TE movements following the invasion. This study proposes to investigate host-TE coevolutionary dynamics from the host?s perspective by focusing on the evolutionary effects of P elements, which invaded Drosophila melanogaster less than a century ago. The research will identify candidate genes that might have an important role in the coevolutionary dynamics followed by an exploration of the functional consequences of those genes. Understanding the coevolution of hosts and TEs is crucial to human health because human genomes are also infested with TEs and they may be the cause of several human diseases. Also, TEs have been proposed as plausible biological control agents because of their replicative and invasive nature. This proposed study will further the understanding of the evolutionary impacts of introduced TEs on the targeted organisms, which is crucial for assessing the feasibility of such proposals.

转座因子（Transposable elements，TE）是通过复制转座（在基因组的不同部分之间移动）增加其在宿主基因组中的数量的小DNA序列。由于它们对宿主的负面适应性影响，TE被认为是基因组寄生虫，它们与宿主基因组的相互作用是宿主-寄生虫协同进化的基本和普遍存在的类别。尽管很少发生，但由于入侵后TE的高迁移率，预计TE入侵新宿主将在短时间内对宿主基因组产生巨大的进化影响。本研究提出了从主机主机TE协同进化动力学研究？的观点，重点是进化的影响，P元素，入侵果蝇不到世纪前。这项研究将确定可能在共同进化动力学中发挥重要作用的候选基因，然后探索这些基因的功能后果。了解宿主和TE的共同进化对人类健康至关重要，因为人类基因组也被TE感染，它们可能是几种人类疾病的原因。此外，由于其复制和侵入性，TE已被提议作为合理的生物控制剂。这项拟议的研究将进一步了解引入的TEs对目标生物的进化影响，这对于评估此类建议的可行性至关重要。