Widespread horizontal transfer of retrotransposons

In higher organisms such as vertebrates, it is generally believed that lateral transfer of genetic information does not readily occur, with the exception of retroviral infection. However, horizontal transfer (HT) of protein coding repetitive elements is the simplest way to explain the patchy distrib...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2013-01, Vol.110 (3), p.1012-1016
Main Authors: Walsh, Ali Morton, Kortschak, R. Daniel, Gardner, Michael G., Bertozzi, Terry, Adelson, David L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Base Sequence
Biological Sciences
Biological taxonomies
Evolution, Molecular
Gene Transfer, Horizontal
Genomes
Horses
Long Interspersed Nucleotide Elements
Mammals
Marsupials
Molecular Sequence Data
Phylogenetics
Phylogeny
Proteins
Reptiles
Retroelements
Ruminants
Sequence Alignment
Taxa
Topology
Transposons
Vertebrates
Vertebrates - classification
Vertebrates - genetics
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Summary:In higher organisms such as vertebrates, it is generally believed that lateral transfer of genetic information does not readily occur, with the exception of retroviral infection. However, horizontal transfer (HT) of protein coding repetitive elements is the simplest way to explain the patchy distribution of BovB, a long interspersed element (LINE) about 3.2 kb long, that has been found in ruminants, marsupials, squamates, monotremes, and African mammals. BovB sequences are a major component of some of these genomes. Here we show that HT of BovB is significantly more widespread than believed, and we demonstrate the existence of two plausible arthropod vectors, specifically reptile ticks. A phylogenetic tree built from BovB sequences from species in all of these groups does not conform to expected evolutionary relationships of the species, and our analysis indicates that at least nine HT events are required to explain the observed topology. Our results provide compelling evidence for HT of genetic material that has transformed vertebrate genomes.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1205856110