Transcriptional activity of PIF and Pong-like Class II transposable elements in Triticeae

BMC Evolutionary Biology

Research Article

Roberta J. Mason-Gamer¹  Dragomira N. Markova² 

[1] Department of Biological Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, M/C 067 840 West Taylor Street, 60607, Chicago, IL, USA;Department of Biological Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, M/C 067 840 West Taylor Street, 60607, Chicago, IL, USA;Present address: Department of Plant Sciences (mail stop 3), 151 Asmundson Hall, University of California, 95616, Davis, CA, USA;

关键词: PIF;    Pong-like;    Transposable elements;    DNA transposon;    Class II;    Transcription;    Phylogeny;    Triticeae;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12862-017-1028-6

 received in 2017-01-15, accepted in 2017-07-26,  发布年份 2017

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundTransposable elements are major contributors to genome size and variability, accounting for approximately 70–80% of the maize, barley, and wheat genomes. PIF and Pong-like elements belong to two closely-related element families within the PIF/Harbinger superfamily of Class II (DNA) transposons. Both elements contain two open reading frames; one encodes a transposase (ORF2) that catalyzes transposition of the functional elements and their related non-autonomous elements, while the function of the second is still debated. In this work, we surveyed for PIF- and Pong-related transcriptional activity in 13 diploid Triticeae species, all of which have been previously shown to harbor extensive within-genome diversity of both groups of elements.ResultsThe results revealed that PIF elements have considerable transcriptional activity in Triticeae, suggesting that they can escape the initial levels of plant cell control and are regulated at the post-transcriptional level. Phylogenetic analysis of 156 PIF cDNA transposase fragments along with 240 genomic partial transposase sequences showed that most, if not all, PIF clades are transcriptionally competent, and that multiple transposases coexisting within a single genome have the potential to act simultaneously. In contrast, we did not detect any transcriptional activity of Pong elements in any sample.ConclusionsThe lack of Pong element transcription shows that even closely related transposon families can exhibit wide variation in their transposase transcriptional activity within the same genome.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s). 2017