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Insects
Special Issues
Insect Transposable Elements
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Insect Transposable Elements

A special issue of Insects (ISSN 2075-4450). This special issue belongs to the section "Insect Molecular Biology and Genomics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2026 | Viewed by 2019

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. David S. Haymer

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, School of Medicine, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI, USA
Interests: insect molecular biology; insect genomics; invasive species; genetic characterization of mass-reared insect colonies; forensic DNA analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Since their discovery by Barbara McClintock through her work with Maize in the 1940s, transposable elements have come to be recognized as ubiquitous and significant components of a wide range of eukaryotic genomes. A range of different types of such elements have been discovered in insect genomes, and these have contributed greatly to both basic scientific knowledge about genome composition and practical applications in the realm of genetic engineering. Genome-level characterizations of ever-more insect species have further expanded the database of available transposable elements, and much remains to be learned about the roles that they play in both genetic and evolutionary processes.

(1) Aim of the Special Issue: Provide overviews of the roles that insect transposable elements have played in both historic and contemporary terms.

(2) Suggested themes and article types for submissions:

– Historical uses of insect transposable elements in genetic engineering;

– Transposable elements as significant components of insect genomes;

– Diversity and functionality of insect transposable elements.

Prof. Dr. David S. Haymer
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Insects is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • insect mobile elements
  • mariner and mariner-like transposable elements
  • P elements
  • piggy-back
  • transposable elements and genome evolution
  • Drosophila transposable elements
  • non-Drosophila transposable elements
  • lines and sines in insect genomes
  • transposable elements and insect transgenesis

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

21 pages, 3959 KiB  
Article
Transposable Elements Contribute to the Regulation of Long Noncoding RNAs in Drosophila melanogaster
by Yuli Gan, Lingyan Wang, Guoxian Liu, Xiruo Guo, Yiming Zhou, Kexin Chang, Zhonghui Zhang, Fang Yan, Qi Liu and Bing Chen
Insects 2024, 15(12), 950; https://doi.org/10.3390/insects15120950 - 30 Nov 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1675
Abstract
Background: Transposable elements (TEs) and noncoding sequences are major components of the genome, yet their functional contributions to long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are not well understood. Although many lncRNAs originating from TEs (TE-lncRNAs) have been identified across various organisms, their characteristics and [...] Read more.
Background: Transposable elements (TEs) and noncoding sequences are major components of the genome, yet their functional contributions to long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are not well understood. Although many lncRNAs originating from TEs (TE-lncRNAs) have been identified across various organisms, their characteristics and regulatory roles, particularly in insects, remain largely unexplored. This study integrated multi-omics data to investigate TE-lncRNAs in D. melanogaster, focusing on the influence of transposons across different omics levels. Results: We identified 16,118 transposons overlapping with lncRNA sequences that constitute 2119 TE-lncRNAs (40.4% of all lncRNAs) using 256 public RNA-seq samples and 15 lncRNA-seq samples of Drosophila S2 cells treated with heavy metals. Of these, 67.2% of TE-lncRNAs contain more than one TE. The LTR/Gypsy family was the most common transposon insertion. Transposons preferred to insert into promoters, transcription starting sites, and intronic regions, especially in chromosome ends. Compared with lncRNAs, TE-lncRNAs showed longer lengths, a lower conservation, and lower levels but a higher specificity of expression. Multi-omics data analysis revealed positive correlations between transposon insertions and chromatin openness at the pre-transcriptional level. Notably, a total of 516 TE-lncRNAs provided transcriptional factor binding sites through transposon insertions. The regulatory network of a key transcription factor was rewired by transposons, potentially recruiting other transcription factors to exert regulatory functions under heavy metal stress. Additionally, 99 TE-lncRNAs were associated with m6A methylation modification sites, and 115 TE-lncRNAs potentially provided candidate small open reading frames through transposon insertions. Conclusions: Our data analysis demonstrated that TEs contribute to the regulation of lncRNAs. TEs not only promote the transcriptional regulation of lncRNAs, but also facilitate their post-transcriptional and epigenetic regulation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Insect Transposable Elements)
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