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IDENTIFICATION OF mariner
TRANSPOSABLE ELEMENTS IN STINGLESS
BEES GENOMES AND EVALUATION OF
ITS PRESENCE IN Melipona, ILLIGER,
1806 (HYMENOPTERA, APIDAE,
MELIPONINI) RELATED TO DIFFERENT
HETEROCHROMATIN CONTENTS
Autores: Priscila Karla Ferreira dos Santos¹*; Nathalia de Setta²; Ana Maria Bonetti¹;
Maria Cristina Arias³; Rute Magalhães Brito¹
Instituição: ¹*Instituto de Genética e Bioquímica - UFU; ²Universidade Federal do
ABC - UFABC; ³Instituto de Biociências - USP.
Contato: Av. Pará 1720, 38400-902 Uberlândia, Brasil.
Email: [email protected]
Transposable elements (TEs) are DNA sequences capable of moving from one location to another
in the host genome. Due to its repetitiveness in a genome, these sequences are suitable for comparison of
heterochromatic regions between closely related species such as bees of the genus Melipona. Although presenting the same basic diploid number (2n = 18), these bees can be divided into two groups: low heterochromatin content, restricted to pericentromeric regions of few chromosomes, and high heterochromatin content
with euchromatin restricted to telomeric regions. Here we investigated the presence of mariner family TE
in genomes of stingless bees and its relationship to heterochromatin content in Melipona. We analyzed nine
species (Apis mellifera (positive control), Lestrimelitta limao, Scaptotrigona depilis, Tetragonisca angustula, M. quadrifasciata, M. crinita, M. compressipes, M. bicolor and Plebeia emerina) by PCR, sequencing
and Dot blot. Excepting L. limao, M. crinita and P. emerina, all species showed amplification of a band of
expected size. Sequencing confirmed the identity of the amplicon as part of the mariner transposase gene,
which was then used as a probe in Dot blot assays. Similarly to A. mellifera, the species S. depilis, T. angustula and M. compressipes showed strong hybridization signal, suggesting the presence of mariner in their
genomes. It was not possible to relate the presence of mariner element with heterochromatin content of Melipona species studied since M. crinita has high heterochromatin content and didn’t show hybridization with
the mariner probe. The distribution of TE in insects’ genomes can be highly variable. Elements of a same
family can have different patterns of chromosome distribution, with specificity to euchromatin or heterochromatin. Our next step is to test the presence and distribution of the retrotransposon R2 by amplification
with primers designed from the alignment of genomes of insects already deposited in Genbank.
Apoio: CNPq; FAPEMIG
Área: Avanços em genética e fisiologia de abelhas
Palavra chave: Melipona - transposable elements - mariner - heterochromatin - Dot blot
Anais do X Encontro sobre Abelhas, 2012
Ribeirão Preto – SP – Brasil