How valuable are model organisms for transposable element studies?

Abstract

Model organisms have proved to be highly informative for many types of genetic studies involving 'conventional' genes. The results have often been successfully generalized to other closely related organisms and also, perhaps surprisingly frequently, to more distantly related organisms. Because of the wealth of previous knowledge and their availability and convenience, model organisms were often the species of choice for many of the earlier studies of transposable elements. The question arises whether the results of genetic studies of transposable elements in model organisms can be extrapolated in the same ways as those of conventional genes? A number of observations suggest that special care needs to be taken in generalizing the results from model organisms to other species. A hallmark of many transposable elements is their ability to amplify rapidly in species genomes. Rapid spread of a newly invaded element throughout a species range has also been demonstrated. The types and genomic copy numbers of transposable elements have been shown to differ greatly between some closely related species. Horizontal transfer of transposable elements appears to be more frequent than for nonmobile genes. Furthermore, the population structure of some model organisms has been subject to drastic recent changes that may have some bearing on their transposable element genomic complements. In order to initiate discussion of this question, several case studies of transposable elements in well-studied Drosophila species are presented.