The genome of the Queensland fruit flyBactrocera tryonicontains multiple representatives of themarinerfamily of transposable elements

Abstract

Representatives of five distinct types of transposable elements of the mariner family were detected in the genomes of the Queensland fruit fly Bactrocera tryoni and its sibling species Bactrocera neohumeralis by phylogenetic analysis of transposase gene fragments. Three mariner types were also found in an additional tephritid, Bactrocera jarvisi. Using genomic library screening and inverse PCR, full-length elements representing the mellifera subfamily (B. tryoni.mar1) and the irritans subfamily (B. tryoni.mar2) were isolated from the B. tryoni genome. Nucleotide consensus sequences for each type were derived from multiple defective copies. Predicted transposase sequences share approximately 23% amino acid identity. B. tryoni.mar1 elements have an estimated copy number of about 900 in the B. tryoni genome, whereas B. tryoni.mar2 element types appear to be present in low copy number.

Multiple subfamilies of mariner transposable elements are present in stalk-eyed flies (Diptera: Diopsidae)

“…BLAST searches, using nucleotide and conceptual amino acid sequences, uncovered a number of close relatives, all from arthropod hosts, of the Diopsid vertumnana elements, increasing the number of elements assigned to the subfamily from 2 (Green and Frommer 2001) to 17. An alignment was created using the 17 vertumnana sequences, and Hsmar1 of the irritans subfamily as an outgroup (see Fig.…”

“…The Teleopsis vertumnana mariner elements show high similarity (~90% nucleotide identity) to Bn29, which was cloned through degenerate PCR screening from the lesser Queensland fruit fly B. neohumeralis (Green and Frommer 2001). The close relationship between Bn29 and the Teleopsis vertumnana elements is strikingly shown in the phylogeny produced using the Diopsid consensus nucleotide sequences (see Fig.…”

“…It cannot be stated with certainty that the recipient Bactrocera species was B. neohumeralis. Green and Frommer (2001) only sequenced one vertumnana element from 19 B. neohumeralis mariner clones. In addition they also looked at closely related species and sequenced 21 mariner clones from B. tryoni and 16 clones from B. jarvisi, but did not find any vertumnana elements.…”

“…Prior to this study only two elements, sequenced from the Tortricid moth Epinotia vertumnana (Robertson 1993) and the Dipteran Bactrocera neohumeralis (Green and Frommer 2001), had been described as members of the vertumnana subfamily. It is shown here that 17 elements can now be confidently assigned to this subfamily.…”

Molecular characterization of a mariner-like element in the Atta sexdens rubropilosa genome

“…Several species that had characterized parcial or full-length elements showed inactive MLEs, with multiple stop codons, deletions or frameshifts. They were observed in the genomes of insects: Rhynchosciara americana (Rezende-Teixeira et al, 2008, Messor bouvieri (Palomeque et al, 2006), Musca domestica (Yoshiyama et al, 2000), Hessian fly (Russell and Shukle, 1997), Bombyx mori (Robertson and Asplund, 1996;Robertson and Walden, 2003;Kumaresan and Mathavan, 2004), Bactrocera tryoni (Green and Frommer, 2001), Ochlerotatus atropalpus (Zakharkin et al, 2004), in Lepidoptera: Antheraea mylitta (Prasad and Nagaraju, 2003), Mamestra brassicae (Mandrioli, 2003), in nematode:…”