Asexual Experimental Evolution of Yeast Does Not Curtail Transposable Elements.

ABSTRACT: Compared with asexual reproduction, sex facilitates the transmission of transposable elements (TEs) from one genome to another, but boosts the efficacy of selection against deleterious TEs. Thus, theoretically, it is unclear whether sex has a positive net effect on TE's proliferation. An empirical study concluded that sex is at the root of TE's evolutionary success because the yeast TE load was found to decrease rapidly in approximately 1,000 generations of asexual but not sexual experimental evolution. However, this finding contradicts the maintenance of TEs in natural yeast populations where sexual reproduction occurs extremely infrequently. Here, we show that the purported TE load reduction during asexual experimental evolution is likely an artifact of low genomic sequencing coverages.

SUBMITTER: Chen P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8233515 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature