ArticleMolecular biology and evolution2011
Human piRNAs are under selection in Africans and repress transposable elements.
Article in Molecular biology and evolution, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 44 citations in OpenAlex.
- Sperm AluY Epimutations in Male Partners of Couples with Unexplained Recurrent Pregnancy Loss.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Enigmatic Pachytene PIWI-Interacting RNAs.Genome biology and evolution · 2024Review
- Amniotes co-opt intrinsic genetic instability to protect germ-line genome integrity.Nature communications · 2023Article
- The successive emergence of ERVL-MaLRs in primates.Virus evolution · 2023Article
- Patterns of piRNA Regulation in Drosophila Revealed through Transposable Element Clade Inference.Molecular biology and evolution · 2022Article
- Article
- New Challenge: Mitochondrial Epigenetics?Stem cell reviews and reports · 2018Review
- Transposable Element Targeting by piRNAs in Laurasiatherians with Distinct Transposable Element Histories.Genome biology and evolution · 2016Article
- Restricting retrotransposons: a review.Mobile DNA · 2016Review
- Conserved piRNA Expression from a Distinct Set of piRNA Cluster Loci in Eutherian Mammals.PLoS genetics · 2015Article
- piRNAs derived from ancient viral processed pseudogenes as transgenerational sequence-specific immune memory in mammals.RNA (New York, N.Y.) · 2015Article
- Evolutionary impact of transposable elements on genomic diversity and lineage-specific innovation in vertebrates.Chromosome research : an international journal on the molecular, supramolecular and evolutionary aspects of chromosome biology · 2015Review
- Prediction of piRNAs using transposon interaction and a support vector machine.BMC bioinformatics · 2014Article
- Variation in piRNA and transposable element content in strains of Drosophila melanogaster.Genome biology and evolution · 2014Article
- The RNA-centred view of the synapse: non-coding RNAs and synaptic plasticity.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2014Review
- A comprehensive analysis of piRNAs from adult human testis and their relationship with genes and mobile elements.BMC genomics · 2014Article
- Analysis of piRNA-mediated silencing of active TEs in Drosophila melanogaster suggests limits on the evolution of host genome defense.Molecular biology and evolution · 2013Article
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- Evolution of animal Piwi-interacting RNAs and prokaryotic CRISPRs.Briefings in functional genomics · 2012Review
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) are a recently discovered class of 24- to 30-nt noncoding RNAs whose best-understood function is to repress transposable elements (TEs) in animal germ lines. In humans, TE-derived sequences comprise ∼45% of the genome and there are several active TE families, including LINE-1 and Alu elements, which are a significant source of de novo mutations and intrapopulation variability. In the "ping-pong model," piRNAs are thought to alternatively cleave sense and antisense TE transcripts in a positive feedback loop. Because piRNAs are poorly conserved between closely related species, including human and chimpanzee, we took a population genomics approach to study piRNA function and evolution. We found strong statistical evidence that piRNA sequences are under selective constraint in African populations. We then mapped the piRNA sequences to human TE sequences and found strong correlations between the age of each LINE-1 and Alu subfamily and the number of piRNAs mapping to the subfamily. This result supports the idea that piRNAs function as repressors of TEs in humans. Finally, we observed a significant depletion of piRNA matches in the reverse transcriptase region of the consensus human LINE-1 element but not of the consensus mouse LINE-1 element. This result suggests that reverse transcriptase might have an endogenous role specific to humans. Overall, our results elucidate the function and evolution of piRNAs in humans and highlight the utility of population genomics analysis for studying this rapidly evolving genetic system.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.