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Chapter category: DNA

Retrotransposons in the Genomes of the Digenean Parasitic Trematodes, Clonorchis sinensis and Paragonimus westermani

Chapter authors:
Young-An Bae and Yoon Kong

Considerable fractions of almost all eukaryotic genomes are composed of a variety of transposable elements (TEs). Members of the phylum Platyhelminthes are also thought to contain diverse TEs which comprise up to 40% of their genomes. A total of 29 retrotransposons, positioning into one non-long-terminal-repeat (LTR) family (6 elements in CR1) and 3 LTR families (5 elements in Xena and Bel, and 13 elements in Gypsy) have been isolated from the genomes of the digenean trematodes, Clonorchis sinensis and Paragonimus westermani. CsRn1 of C. sinensis and PwRn1 of P. westermani are novel retrotransposons from full units for which the molecular structures have been established in detail. These elements were evenly distributed throughout the entirety of the respective genomes, with high copy numbers. They exhibited the characteristic structural features of LTR retrotransposons belonging to the Gypsy family and encoded each for a single long open reading frame. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the CsRn1 and PwRn1 elements formed a novel, tightly-conserved clade, which has been suggested to have evolved uniquely in the metazoan genomes. Significant intergenomic variations induced by the heterogeneous integration of active copies of CsRn1 were discovered among individual C. sinensis. These data suggested that diverse retrotransposon families are present in the lower animal taxa, and that some of these elements comprise important intermediate forms emerging during the course of evolution of the LTR retrotransposons. Retrotransposons in the trematodes might influence the remodeling of their host genomes.

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