ArticlePLoS genetics2015
The Role of piRNA-Mediated Epigenetic Silencing in the Population Dynamics of Transposable Elements in Drosophila melanogaster.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 65 papers.
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Who cites it
65 citing papers in PubMed, 110 citations in OpenAlex.
- Multi-locus models of deleterious epimutation-selection balance and the evolution of recombination modifiers.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Article
- Leveraging long-read assemblies and machine learning to enhance short-read transposable element detection and genotyping.Genetics · 2026Article
- Polymorphic 3D genome architecture mediated by transposable elements.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- The contribution of transposable element insertions to genetic diversity inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- The epigenetics effects of transposable elements are genomic context dependent and not restricted to gene silencing in Drosophila.Genome biology · 2025Article
- Prevalent Fast Evolution of Genes Involved in Heterochromatin Functions.Molecular biology and evolution · 2024Article
- Blessing or curse: how the epigenetic resolution of host-transposable element conflicts shapes their evolutionary dynamics.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Review
- Off-target piRNA gene silencing in Drosophila melanogaster rescued by a transposable element insertion.PLoS genetics · 2023Article
- Review
- Species-specific chromatin landscape determines how transposable elements shape genome evolution.eLife · 2022Article
- Dynamics and Impacts of Transposable Element Proliferation in the Drosophila nasuta Species Group Radiation.Molecular biology and evolution · 2022Article
- Abundant small RNAs in the reproductive tissues and eggs of the honey bee, Apis mellifera.BMC genomics · 2022Article
- Meiotic, genomic and evolutionary properties of crossover distribution in Drosophila yakuba.PLoS genetics · 2022Article
- Article
- The regulatory function of piRNA/PIWI complex in cancer and other human diseases: The role of DNA methylation.International journal of biological sciences · 2022Review
- Complex Genetic Interactions between Piwi and HP1a in the Repression of Transposable Elements and Tissue-Specific Genes in the Ovarian Germline.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Article
- Regulatory regions in natural transposable element insertions drive interindividual differences in response to immune challenges in Drosophila.Genome biology · 2021Article
- Structure, Organization, and Evolution of Satellite DNAs: Insights from the Drosophila repleta and D. virilis Species Groups.Progress in molecular and subcellular biology · 2021Article
- Satellite DNA-Mediated Gene Expression Regulation: Physiological and Evolutionary Implication.Progress in molecular and subcellular biology · 2021Article
5 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
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Abstract
The piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNA) are small RNAs that target selfish transposable elements (TEs) in many animal genomes. Until now, piRNAs' role in TE population dynamics has only been discussed in the context of their suppression of TE transposition, which alone is not sufficient to account for the skewed frequency spectrum and stable containment of TEs. On the other hand, euchromatic TEs can be epigenetically silenced via piRNA-dependent heterochromatin formation and, similar to the widely known "Position-effect variegation", heterochromatin induced by TEs can "spread" into nearby genes. We hypothesized that the piRNA-mediated spread of heterochromatin from TEs into adjacent genes has deleterious functional effects and leads to selection against individual TEs. Unlike previously identified deleterious effects of TEs due to the physical disruption of DNA, the functional effect we investigated here is mediated through the epigenetic influences of TEs. We found that the repressive chromatin mark, H3K9me, is elevated in sequences adjacent to euchromatic TEs at multiple developmental stages in Drosophila melanogaster. Furthermore, the heterochromatic states of genes depend not only on the number of and distance from adjacent TEs, but also on the likelihood that their nearest TEs are targeted by piRNAs. These variations in chromatin status probably have functional consequences, causing genes near TEs to have lower expression. Importantly, we found stronger selection against TEs that lead to higher H3K9me enrichment of adjacent genes, demonstrating the pervasive evolutionary consequences of TE-induced epigenetic silencing. Because of the intrinsic biological mechanism of piRNA amplification, spread of TE heterochromatin could result in the theoretically required synergistic deleterious effects of TE insertions for stable containment of TE copy number. The indirect deleterious impact of piRNA-mediated epigenetic silencing of TEs is a previously unexplored, yet important, element for the evolutionary dynamics of TEs.
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