Removal of beneficial insertion effects prevent the long-term persistence of transposable elements within simulated asexual populations

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Butler, Christopher L., Bell, Ellen A. and Taylor, Martin I. (2021) Removal of beneficial insertion effects prevent the long-term persistence of transposable elements within simulated asexual populations. BMC Genomics, 22. ISSN 1471-2164

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Abstract

Background: Transposable elements are significant components of most organism’s genomes, yet the reasons why their abundances vary significantly among species is poorly understood. A recent study has suggested that even in the absence of traditional molecular evolutionary explanations, transposon proliferation may occur through a process known as ‘transposon engineering’. However, their model used a fixed beneficial transposon insertion frequency of 20%, which we believe to be unrealistically high. Results: Reducing this beneficial insertion frequency, while keeping all other parameters identical, prevented transposon proliferation. Conclusions: We conclude that the author’s original findings are better explained through the action of positive selection rather than ‘transposon engineering’, with beneficial insertion effects remaining important during transposon proliferation events.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Funding information: CB was supported by a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and EnvEast doctoral training partnership (DTP) grant [grant number NE/L002582/1] and EB was supported by a BBSRC grant [BB/R017174/1] awarded to MT. The funders had no role in the design of the study, analysis, interpretation of the data or the writing of the manuscript.
Uncontrolled Keywords: c-value,genome ecology,in-silico model,positive selection,transposon proliferation,biotechnology,genetics ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1300/1305
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Organisms and the Environment
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Biosciences Teaching and Education Research
Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 12 Jan 2021 00:54
Last Modified: 17 Oct 2025 20:33
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/78151
DOI: 10.1186/s12864-021-07569-3

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