Turning gold into 'junk': transposable elements utilize central proteins of cellular networks.

ABSTRACT: The numerous discovered cases of domesticated transposable element (TE) proteins led to the recognition that TEs are a significant source of evolutionary innovation. However, much less is known about the reverse process, whether and to what degree the evolution of TEs is influenced by the genome of their hosts. We addressed this issue by searching for cases of incorporation of host genes into the sequence of TEs and examined the systems-level properties of these genes using the Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Drosophila melanogaster genomes. We identified 51 cases where the evolutionary scenario was the incorporation of a host gene fragment into a TE consensus sequence, and we show that both the yeast and fly homologues of the incorporated protein sequences have central positions in the cellu

SUBMITTER: Abrusan G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3597677 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature