Research article

The evolutionary dynamics of the Helena retrotransposon revealed by sequenced Drosophila genomes

Adriana Granzotto^1* , Fabrício R Lopes^1* , Emmanuelle Lerat^2* , Cristina Vieira^2* and Claudia MA Carareto^1*

¹  UNESP – São Paulo State University, Laboratory of Molecular Evolution, Department of Biology, 15054-000 São José do Rio Preto, São Paulo, Brazil

²  Université de Lyon, F-69000, Lyon; Université Lyon 1; CNRS, UMR5558, Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive, F-69622, Villeurbanne, France

author email corresponding author email* Contributed equally

BMC Evolutionary Biology 2009, 9:174doi:10.1186/1471-2148-9-174

Published:	22 July 2009

Abstract

Background

Several studies have shown that genomes contain a mixture of transposable elements, some of which are still active and others ancient relics that have degenerated. This is true for the non-LTR retrotransposon Helena, of which only degenerate sequences have been shown to be present in some species (Drosophila melanogaster), whereas putatively active sequences are present in others (D. simulans). Combining experimental and population analyses with the sequence analysis of the 12 Drosophila genomes, we have investigated the evolution of Helena, and propose a possible scenario for the evolution of this element.

Results

We show that six species of Drosophila have the Helena transposable element at different stages of its evolution. The copy number is highly variable among these species, but most of them are truncated at the 5' ends and also harbor several internal deletions and insertions suggesting that they are inactive in all species, except in D. mojavensis in which quantitative RT-PCR experiments have identified a putative active copy.

Conclusion

Our data suggest that Helena was present in the common ancestor of the Drosophila genus, which has been vertically transmitted to the derived lineages, but that it has been lost in some of them. The wide variation in copy number and sequence degeneration in the different species suggest that the evolutionary dynamics of Helena depends on the genomic environment of the host species.