Large Drosophila germline piRNA clusters are evolutionarily labile and dispensable for transposon regulation
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Published version
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6.14 MB
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Author(s)
Gebert, Daniel
Neubert, Lena K
Lloyd, Catrin
Gui, Jinghua
Lehmann, Ruth
Teixeira, Felipe Karam
Date Issued
2021
Journal
Molecular Cell
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Citation
Gebert, Daniel, Neubert, Lena K, Lloyd, Catrin, Gui, Jinghua, Lehmann, Ruth et al. 2021. "Large Drosophila germline piRNA clusters are evolutionarily labile and dispensable for transposon regulation." Molecular Cell, 81 (19).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
PIWI proteins and their guiding Piwi-interacting small RNAs (piRNAs) are crucial for fertility and transposon defense in the animal germline. In most species, the majority of piRNAs are produced from distinct large genomic loci, called piRNA clusters. It is assumed that germline-expressed piRNA clusters, particularly in Drosophila, act as principal regulators to control transposons dispersed across the genome. Here, using synteny analysis, we show that large clusters are evolutionarily labile, arise at loci characterized by recurrent chromosomal rearrangements, and are mostly species-specific across the Drosophila genus. By engineering chromosomal deletions in D. melanogaster, we demonstrate that the three largest germline clusters, which account for the accumulation of >40% of all transposon-targeting piRNAs in ovaries, are neither required for fertility nor for transposon regulation in trans. We provide further evidence that dispersed elements, rather than the regulatory action of large Drosophila germline clusters in trans, may be central for transposon defense.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biology
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/J.MOLCEL.2021.07.011
