Transposition-Driven Genomic Heterogeneity in the Drosophila Brain

• DOI: 10.1126/science.1231965
• Publication Date: 2013-04-04T18:43:18Z
• Authors: Paola N. Perrat; Shamik DasGupta; Jie Wang; William Theurkauf; Zhiping Weng; Michael Rosbash; Scott Waddell
• Keywords: Mushroom Bodies/cytology; 570; Drosophila melanogaster/genetics; Drosophila Proteins/metabolism; Retroelements; Small Interfering/metabolism; Genome, Insect; Neurons/metabolism; Insect/genetics; 03 medical and health sciences; Peptide Initiation Factors; Animals; Drosophila Proteins; RNA, Small Interfering; Mushroom Bodies; Neurons; 0303 health sciences; Genome; Peptide Initiation Factors/metabolism; Brain; Argonaute Proteins/metabolism; Drosophila melanogaster; Gene Expression Regulation; Brain/cytology; Argonaute Proteins; RNA; Retroelements/genetics; Transcriptome

Neuronal Transposons

Transposons comprise a hefty chunk of the Drosophila genome and, unregulated, can generate mutations; thus, mechanisms exist to suppress transposon activity, particularly in the germline.

Perrat et al.

(p. 91 ) investigated transposon motility in neurons of the Drosophila brain. The mushroom body of the brain, responsible for olfactory memory, contains several different types of neurons. One class of neurons, the αβ neurons, exhibited increased transposon mobility, which generated increased neuronal diversity.