Drosophila Interspecific Hybridization Causes a Deregulation of the piRNA Pathway Genes
Gámez Visairas, Víctor (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Genètica i de Microbiologia)
Romero-Soriano, Valèria (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Genètica i de Microbiologia)
Martí-Carreras, Joan (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Genètica i de Microbiologia)
Segarra-Carrillo, Eila (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Genètica i de Microbiologia)
García Guerreiro, María Pilar (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Genètica i de Microbiologia)

Date:	2020
Abstract:	Almost all eukaryotes have transposable elements (TEs) against which they have developed defense mechanisms. In the Drosophila germline, the main transposable element (TE) regulation pathway is mediated by specific Piwi-interacting small RNAs (piRNAs). Nonetheless, for unknown reasons, TEs sometimes escape cellular control during interspecific hybridization processes. Because the piRNA pathway genes are involved in piRNA biogenesis and TE control, we sequenced and characterized nine key genes from this pathway in Drosophila buzzatii and Drosophila koepferae species and studied their expression pattern in ovaries of both species and their F1 hybrids. We found that gene structure is, in general, maintained between both species and that two genes- armitage and aubergine- are under positive selection. Three genes- krimper, methyltransferase 2, and zucchini -displayed higher expression values in hybrids than both parental species, while others had RNA levels similar to the parental species with the highest expression. This suggests that the overexpression of some piRNA pathway genes can be a primary response to hybrid stress. Therefore, these results reinforce the hypothesis that TE deregulation may be due to the protein incompatibility caused by the rapid evolution of these genes, leading to a TE silencing failure, rather than to an underexpression of piRNA pathway genes.
Grants:	Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación CGL2013-42432P Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación CGL2017-89160P Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2014/SGR-1346 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2017/SGR-1379
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Drosophila ; Pirna pathway genes ; Interspecific hybrids ; Transposable elements ; Deregulation
Published in:	Genes, Vol. 11, Issue 2 (February 2020) , art. 215, ISSN 2073-4425

DOI: 10.3390/genes11020215
PMID: 32092860

15 p, 2.6 MB

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