Drosophila Interspecific Hybridization Causes a Deregulation of the piRNA Pathway Genes



Gamez-Visairas, Victor, Romero-Soriano, Valeria, Marti-Carreras, Joan, Segarra-Carrillo, Eila and Garcia Guerreiro, Maria Pilar
(2020) Drosophila Interspecific Hybridization Causes a Deregulation of the piRNA Pathway Genes. GENES, 11 (2). E215-.

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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 <i>Drosophila</i><i>buzzatii</i> and <i>Drosophila</i><i>koepferae</i> 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-<i>armitage</i> and <i>aubergine</i><i>-</i>are under positive selection. Three genes-<i>krimper</i><i>, methyltransferase 2</i><i>,</i> and <i>zucchini</i>-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.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: Drosophila, piRNA pathway genes, interspecific hybrids, transposable elements, deregulation
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 02 Mar 2020 11:13
Last Modified: 26 Jan 2024 09:24
DOI: 10.3390/genes11020215
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3077030