Relaxed Purifying Selection is Associated with an Accumulation of Transposable Elements in Flies.

ABSTRACT: Although the mechanisms driving genome size evolution are not yet fully understood, one potentially important factor is the dynamics of the accumulation of transposable elements (TEs). Since most TEs are neutral or slightly deleterious, a negative correlation between the genome size and the efficacy of selection is expected. However, previous empirical studies on closely related species with distinct life history traits (thought to undergo different selective regimes) have yielded inconsistent results. Here, we perform the first large-scale analysis of the effect of genetic drift on the genome size evolution, without any prior assumption on the amount of genetic drift. We reconstructed a phylogeny based on the whole-genome data (2,242 genes) for 77 Drosophilid species to examine correlatio

SUBMITTER: Merel V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12202769 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature