Starships are active eukaryotic transposable elements mobilized by a new family of tyrosine recombinases.

ABSTRACT: Transposable elements in eukaryotic organisms have historically been considered "selfish," at best conferring indirect benefits to their host organisms. The Starships are a recently discovered feature in fungal genomes that are, in some cases, predicted to confer beneficial traits to their hosts and also have hallmarks of being transposable elements. Here, we provide experimental evidence that Starships are indeed autonomous transposons, using the model Paecilomyces variotii, and identify the HhpA "Captain" tyrosine recombinase as essential for their mobilization into genomic sites with a specific target site consensus sequence. Furthermore, we identify multiple recent horizontal gene transfers of Starships, implying that they jump between species. Fungal genome

SUBMITTER: Urquhart AS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10104507 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature