Rates and patterns of great ape retrotransposition

Date

2013

Authors

Hormozdiari, F.
Konkel, M. K.
Prado-Martinez, J.
Chiatante, G.
Herraez, I. H.
Walker, J. A.
Nelson, B.
Alkan, C.
Sudmant, P. H.
Huddleston, J.

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Abstract

We analyzed 83 fully sequenced great ape genomes for mobile element insertions, predicting a total of 49,452 fixed and polymorphic Alu and long interspersed element 1 (L1) insertions not present in the human reference assembly and assigning each retrotransposition event to a different time point during great ape evolution. We used these homoplasy-free markers to construct a mobile element insertions-based phylogeny of humans and great apes and demonstrate their differential power to discern ape subspecies and populations. Within this context, we find a good correlation between L1 diversity and single-nucleotide polymorphism heterozygosity (r2 =0.65) in contrast to Alu repeats, which show little correlation (r2 =0.07). We estimate that the rate of Alu retrotransposition has differed by a factor of 15-fold in these lineages. Humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos show the highest rates of Alu accumulation-the latter two since divergence 1.5 Mya. The L1 insertion rate, in contrast, has remained relatively constant, with rates differing by less than a factor of three. We conclude that Alu retrotransposition has been the most variable form of genetic variation during recent human-great ape evolution, with increases and decreases occurring over very short periods of evolutionary time.

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Title National Academy of Sciences. Proceedings

Publisher

National Academy of Sciences

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Published Version (Please cite this version)

Language

English