First day at #EMBOMobileGenome So many great talks! Toby’s on fungal genome evolution was a highlight: exciting results and inspiring questions ahead

Toby Baril@tobybarilbio.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Time to kick off #EMBOMobileGenome for 2025! A great selection of speakers and posters on the agenda! #TEWorldwide #TESky

We discovered an endogenous retrovirus that's still spreading in natural D. melanogaster populations! It was horizontally transferred from D. erecta in Central Africa, so we named it "Kuruka", which means "jump" in Swahili. Read its cool story here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Germline defence from TEs largely relies on piRNAs. Yet, @divyaselvaraju.bsky.social and I monitored a P-element invasion in Drosophila that was stopped by an internally deleted copy, no host intervention required! doi.org/10.1371/jour... Many thanks to @rpianezza.bsky.social & @rokofler.bsky.social

Rapid emergence of non-autonomous elements may stop P-element invasions in the absence of a piRNA-based host defence

Author summary Transposable elements (TEs) are short, self-replicating DNA sequences found in nearly all genomes. While they can be harmful to their hosts, many organisms have evolved defence systems,...

journals.plos.org

The work on TE invasions in D. melanogaster continues! We found three more recent invasions, one of which occurred in ~3 years worldwide. Another great collaboration with @rpianezza.bsky.social @rokofler.bsky.social and others

super-happy, three TE invasions in Dmel during the last 30 years; the crazy thing - Transib1 spread in just 2-3years in global populations academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-... great work everyone @rpianezza.bsky.social @almoroscarpa.bsky.social @signor-molevol.bsky.social Anna Haider

Spatio-temporal tracking of three novel transposable element invasions in Drosophila melanogaster over the last 30 years

Abstract. Transposable elements (TEs) are repetitive sequences capable of mobilizing within genomes, exerting a sigfinificant influence on evolution throug

academic.oup.com

Our new preprint is out! We explored the biogeographic origins of TEs in the D. melanogaster genome. Most TEs were recently acquired via horizontal transfer, mainly from Afrotropical Drosophila species. Surprisingly, all African drosophilids share some of these TEs! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Biogeography shapes the TE landscape of Drosophila melanogaster

The abundance and composition of transposable elements (TEs) varies widely across species, yet the evolutionary forces shaping this diversity remain poorly understood. Using 285 recently published gen...

biorxiv.org