A scenario for the hobo transposable element invasion, deduced from the structure of natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster using tandem TPE repeats
E. Bonnivard et al., A scenario for the hobo transposable element invasion, deduced from the structure of natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster using tandem TPE repeats, GENET RES, 75(1), 2000, pp. 13-23
Temporal surveys of hobo transposable elements in natural populations revea
l a historical pattern suggesting a recent world-wide invasion of D. melano
gaster by these transposons. perhaps following a recent horizontal transfer
. To clarify the dynamics of hobo elements in natural populations, and thus
to provide further data for our understanding of the hobo invasion, TPE ta
ndem repeats, observed in the polymorphic S region of the element, were use
d as molecular markers. The number of TPE repeats was studied in 101 curren
t populations from around the world, and in 63 strains collected in the pas
t. This revealed a geographical distribution which seems to have been stabl
e since the beginning of the 1960s. This distribution is compatible with a
number of hypotheses for the dynamics of hobo elements. We propose a scenar
io based on an invasion in two stages: first, a complete invasion by elemen
ts with three TPE repeats, followed by the beginning of a new invasion invo
lving hobo elements with five or seven repeats.