Transposable elements (TEs) are selfish DNA sequences capable of moving and amplifying at the expense of host cells. Despite this, an increasing number of studies have revealed that TE proteins are important contributors to the emergence of novel host proteins through molecular domestication. We previously described seven transposase-derived domesticated genes from the PIF/Harbinger DNA family of TEs in Drosophila and a co-domestication. All PIF TEs known in plants and animals distinguish themselves from other DNA transposons by the presence of two genes. We hypothesize that there should often be co-domestications of the two genes from the same TE because the transposase (gene 1) has been described to be translocated to the nucleus by the MADF protein (gene 2). To provide support for this model of new gene origination, we investigated available insect species genomes for additional evidence of PIF TE domestication events and explored the co-domestication of the MADF protein from the same TE insertion. We present evidence of at least eight more independent PIF transposable elements proteins domestication or co-domestications events in insects. Our results add to a co-domestication that we previously described in fruit fly genomes and support that new gene origination through domestication of a PIF transposase is frequently accompanied by the co-domestication of a cognate MADF protein in insects. We propose a detailed model that predicts that PIF TE protein co-domestication should often occur from the same PIF TE insertion. We are currently studying their functions in flies and have some evidence supporting their gene regulatory role.
I am a Full Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Texas at Arlington. I received my Ph.D. in Genetics from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, working with Drs. Alfredo Ruiz and Mauro Santos. As an European Commission Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Cambridge, UK, and later as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Chicago I worked with Professors Michael Ashburner and Manyuan Long on duplicated genes and their functions in Drosophila and humans. I have been at UT Arlington since 2003 and teaching Genetics, Advanced Genetics, Molecular Evolution and/or Genomics since 2004. I am an Evolutionary Biologist interested in the origin of functional innovations in the genomes. Our focus has been gene retroduplications and genes domesticated from transposable elements. We have learned that genomes keep changing often in response to evolutionary conflicts and under strong selection. The sources of funding for the laboratory have been NIH and NSF.