The genome of the Queensland fruit fly Bactrocera tryoni contains multiplerepresentatives of the mariner family of transposable elements

Representatives of five distinct types of transposable elements of the mari ner family were detected in the genomes of the Queensland fruit fly Bactroc era 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 scre ening and inverse PCR, full-length elements representing the mellifera subf amily (B. tryoni.mar1) and the Irritans subfamily (B. tryoni.mar2) were iso lated from the B. tryoni genome. Nucleotide consensus sequences for each ty pe were derived from multiple defective copies. Predicted transposase seque nces share approximate to 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.