Program > Browse abstracts by speaker > Garambois Chloé

Transposable elements (TEs) are mobile and repeated sequences found in all genomes. TEs are controlled by RNA interference pathways in most organisms, and this control involves specifically the piRNA pathway, but also the siRNA pathway, which is also known to be the first line of antiviral defense in invertebrates. Using Drosophila, we have recently shown that viral infections resulted in the modulation of TE transcript amounts through modulations of the small RNA repertoires. The Aedes aegypti mosquito is of particular interest because almost half of its genome is made of TEs and it is described as a major vector of viruses (such as dengue (DENV), zika (ZIKV) or chikungunya (CHIKV) arboviruses). Moreover, Aedes mosquitoes are particular among insects in that the piRNA pathway is also involved in somatic antiviral response in addition to TE control and piRNA pathway genes expanded in the mosquito genome. For all these reasons, we decided to study the impacts of viral infections on TE transcript amounts in Ae. aegypti samples. We retrieved public datasets corresponding to RNA-seq data obtained from viral infections by DENV, ZIKV and CHIKV in various tissues. We find that TE transcripts are moderately modulated following viral infection and that the direction of the modulation largely varies across tissues and viruses. These results reinforce the need for a deep investigation of the tightly intertwined interactions between TEs and viruses.