Transposon expression in the <i>Drosophila</i> brain is driven by neighboring genes and diversifies the neural transcriptome.

ABSTRACT: Somatic transposon expression in neural tissue is commonly considered as a measure of mobilization and has therefore been linked to neuropathology and organismal individuality. We combined genome sequencing data with single-cell mRNA sequencing of the same inbred fly strain to map transposon expression in the Drosophila midbrain and found that transposon expression patterns are highly stereotyped. Every detected transposon is resident in at least one cellular gene with a matching expression pattern. Bulk RNA sequencing from fly heads of the same strain revealed that coexpression is a physical link in the form of abundant chimeric transposon-gene mRNAs. We identified 264 genes where transposons introduce cryptic splice sites into the nascent transcript and thereby significantly expan

SUBMITTER: Treiber CD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7605248 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature