Molecular Biology and Evolution 18:246-253 (2001)
© 2001 Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution
ARTICLE |
Genomic Gigantism: DNA Loss Is Slow in Mountain Grasshoppers
*Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University;
Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University;
Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People's Republic of China; and
§School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, England
Several studies have shown DNA loss to be inversely correlated with genome size in animals. These studies include a comparison between Drosophila and the cricket, Laupala, but there has been no assessment of DNA loss in insects with very large genomes. Podisma pedestris, the brown mountain grasshopper, has a genome over 100 times as large as that of Drosophila and 10 times as large as that of Laupala. We used 58 paralogous nuclear pseudogenes of mitochondrial origin to study the characteristics of insertion, deletion, and point substitution in P. pedestris and Italopodisma. In animals, these pseudogenes are "dead on arrival"; they are abundant in many different eukaryotes, and their mitochondrial origin simplifies the identification of point substitutions accumulated in nuclear pseudogene lineages. There appears to be a mononucleotide repeat within the 643-bp pseudogene sequence studied that acts as a strong hot spot for insertions or deletions (indels). Because the data for other insect species did not contain such an unusual region, hot spots were excluded from species comparisons. The rate of DNA loss relative to point substitution appears to be considerably and significantly lower in the grasshoppers studied than in Drosophila or Laupala. This suggests that the inverse correlation between genome size and the rate of DNA loss can be extended to comparisons between insects with large or gigantic genomes (i.e., Laupala and Podisma). The low rate of DNA loss implies that in grasshoppers, the accumulation of point mutations is a more potent force for obscuring ancient pseudogenes than their loss through indel accumulation, whereas the reverse is true for Drosophila. The main factor contributing to the difference in the rates of DNA loss estimated for grasshoppers, crickets, and Drosophila appears to be deletion size. Large deletions are relatively rare in Podisma and Italopodisma.
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  E. Hazkani-Covo Mitochondrial Insertions into Primate Nuclear Genomes Suggest the Use of numts as a Tool for Phylogeny Mol. Biol. Evol., October 1, 2009; 26(10): 2175 - 2179. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 C.-H. Kuo and H. Ochman Deletional Bias across the Three Domains of Life Gen Biol Evol, July 10, 2009; 2009(0): 145 - 152. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
M. E. Pettersson, C. G. Kurland, and O. G. Berg Deletion Rate Evolution and Its Effect on Genome Size and Coding Density Mol. Biol. Evol., June 1, 2009; 26(6): 1421 - 1430. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
M. A. Lysak, M. A. Koch, J. M. Beaulieu, A. Meister, and I. J. Leitch The Dynamic Ups and Downs of Genome Size Evolution in Brassicaceae Mol. Biol. Evol., January 1, 2009; 26(1): 85 - 98. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 H. Song, J. E. Buhay, M. F. Whiting, and K. A. Crandall Many species in one: DNA barcoding overestimates the number of species when nuclear mitochondrial pseudogenes are coamplified PNAS, September 9, 2008; 105(36): 13486 - 13491. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 G. Bosco, P. Campbell, J. T. Leiva-Neto, and T. A. Markow Analysis of Drosophila Species Genome Size and Satellite DNA Content Reveals Significant Differences Among Strains as Well as Between Species Genetics, November 1, 2007; 177(3): 1277 - 1290. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
C. M. Bergman and D. Bensasson Recent LTR retrotransposon insertion contrasts with waves of non-LTR insertion since speciation in Drosophila melanogaster PNAS, July 3, 2007; 104(27): 11340 - 11345. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
C. Vitte and J. L. Bennetzen Eukaryotic Transposable Elements and Genome Evolution Special Feature: Analysis of retrotransposon structural diversity uncovers properties and propensities in angiosperm genome evolution PNAS, November 21, 2006; 103(47): 17638 - 17643. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
I. Keller, I. C. Chintauan-Marquier, P. Veltsos, and R. A. Nichols Ribosomal DNA in the Grasshopper Podisma pedestris: Escape From Concerted Evolution Genetics, October 1, 2006; 174(2): 863 - 874. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
M. Boulesteix, M. Weiss, and C. Biemont Differences in Genome Size Between Closely Related Species: The Drosophila melanogaster Species Subgroup Mol. Biol. Evol., January 1, 2006; 23(1): 162 - 167. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
J. Pons and A. P. Vogler Complex Pattern of Coalescence and Fast Evolution of a Mitochondrial rRNA Pseudogene in a Recent Radiation of Tiger Beetles Mol. Biol. Evol., April 1, 2005; 22(4): 991 - 1000. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
P. Pineau, M. Henry, R. Suspene, A. Marchio, A. Dettai, R. Debruyne, T. Petit, A. Lecu, P. Moisson, A. Dejean, et al. A Universal Primer Set for PCR Amplification of Nuclear Histone H4 Genes from All Animal Species Mol. Biol. Evol., March 1, 2005; 22(3): 582 - 588. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
E. Richly and D. Leister NUPTs in Sequenced Eukaryotes and Their Genomic Organization in Relation to NUMTs Mol. Biol. Evol., October 1, 2004; 21(10): 1972 - 1980. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 C. E. Grover, H. Kim, R. A. Wing, A. H. Paterson, and J. F. Wendel Incongruent Patterns of Local and Global Genome Size Evolution in Cotton Genome Res., August 1, 2004; 14(8): 1474 - 1482. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
E. Richly and D. Leister NUMTs in Sequenced Eukaryotic Genomes Mol. Biol. Evol., June 1, 2004; 21(6): 1081 - 1084. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
J. Ma, K. M. Devos, and J. L. Bennetzen Analyses of LTR-Retrotransposon Structures Reveal Recent and Rapid Genomic DNA Loss in Rice Genome Res., May 1, 2004; 14(5): 860 - 869. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
Z. Zhang, P. M. Harrison, Y. Liu, and M. Gerstein Millions of Years of Evolution Preserved: A Comprehensive Catalog of the Processed Pseudogenes in the Human Genome Genome Res., December 1, 2003; 13(12): 2541 - 2558. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
D. E. Neafsey and S. R. Palumbi Genome Size Evolution in Pufferfish: A Comparative Analysis of Diodontid and Tetraodontid Pufferfish Genomes Genome Res., May 1, 2003; 13(5): 821 - 830. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 L. HANSON, R. L. BROWN, A. BOYD, M. A. T. JOHNSON, and M. D. BENNETT First Nuclear DNA C-values for 28 Angiosperm Genera Ann. Bot., January 1, 2003; 91(1): 31 - 38. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
S. E. Ptak and D. A. Petrov How Intron Splicing Affects the Deletion and Insertion Profile in Drosophila melanogaster Genetics, November 1, 2002; 162(3): 1233 - 1244. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
C. D. Bustamante, R. Nielsen, and D. L. Hartl A Maximum Likelihood Method for Analyzing Pseudogene Evolution: Implications for Silent Site Evolution in Humans and Rodents Mol. Biol. Evol., January 1, 2002; 19(1): 110 - 117. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
S. T. Williams and N. Knowlton Mitochondrial Pseudogenes Are Pervasive and Often Insidious in the Snapping Shrimp Genus Alpheus Mol. Biol. Evol., August 1, 2001; 18(8): 1484 - 1493. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|