Oxidative and radiation stress induces transposable element transcription in Drosophila melanogaster

Abstract

It has been shown that stressors are capable of activating transposable elements (TEs). Currently, there is a hypothesis that stress activation of TEs may be involved in adaptive evolution, favouring the increase in genetic variability when the population is under adverse conditions. However, TE activation under stress is still poorly understood. In the present study, we estimated the fraction of differentially expressed TEs (DETEs) under ionizing radiation (144, 360 and 864 Gy) and oxidative stress (dioxin, formaldehyde and toluene) treatments. The stress intensity of each treatment was estimated by measuring the number of differentially expressed genes, and we show that several TEs families are activated by stress whereas others are repressed. The proportion of DETEs was positively related to stress intensity. However, even under the strongest stress, only a small fraction of TE families were activated (9.28%) and 17.72% were repressed. Considering all treatments together, the activated proportion was 19.83%. Nevertheless, as several TEs are incomplete or degenerated, only 10.55% of D. melanogaster mobilome is, at same time, activated by the stressors and able to transpose or at least code a protein. Thus, our study points out that although stress activates TEs, it is not a generalized activation process, and for some families, the stress induces repression.

Predicted Cellular Interactors of the Endogenous Retrovirus-K Integrase Enzyme

“…Drosophila, a common model organism, also contained ERVK IN-like elements in their genome, specifically LTR retrotransposons flea and Xanthias , as identified by FlyBase ( Table A4 ). The transposable element Xanthias is known to be active in D. melanogaster [ 151 , 152 ], and it shares a degree of similarity with ERVK IN. The presence and activity of these ERVs is an important factor to consider when performing experiments.…”

ChimeraTE: A pipeline to detect chimeric transcripts derived from genes and transposable elements

“…Among several sources of modification in gene expression and novel isoform transcripts, TEs have been considered as fundamental suppliers of transcriptome plasticity, participating in gene networks and incorporating either regulatory sequences or protein domains into gene transcripts. The identification of chimeric transcripts is an important step to understanding transcriptome plasticity, since they may be triggered by ectopic conditions, such as cancer, oxidative stress, and heat shock (27, 90, 91), which may lead to both detrimental and advantageous outcomes (92). Therefore, uncovering the extent of chimeric transcripts between individual/cell/strain transcriptomes is a crucial first step to investigate potential exaptation/domestication events, or gene disruption and loss of function.…”

Induction and inhibition of Drosophila X chromosome gene expression are both impeded by the dosage compensation complex

“…In a third dataset, we analyzed the response to infection at 19 different timepoints from 1 to 120 h after injection of Escherichia coli -derived crude lipopolysaccharide ( Schlamp et al 2021 ). Other datasets include exposure to one of 2 different viral infections, copper, starvation, radiation, and cocaine ( Palmer et al 2018 ; Prasad and Hens 2018 ; Harsh et al 2020 ; Baker et al 2021 ; de Oliveira et al 2021 ; Green et al 2021 ). A full list of accession numbers is provided in Supplementary File 1 .…”