A monophyletic group of Drosophila hAT transposable elements, referred to as Herves‐like, was characterized and found to be present in 46% of 57 screened Drosophila species. A remarkable characteristic of these elements is the presence of a long array of minisatellite repeats (MnRs) in both subterminal extremities of the elements. The copy number of these minisatellites was highly variable between and within populations. Twenty‐three strains of Drosophila willistoni, covering its geographic distribution, were screened for polymorphism in the copy number of 5′ MnRs, showing a variation from 7 to 20 repeat copies. These MnRs are well conserved among Drosophila species and probably function as transposase binding sequences, as provided by short subterminal repeats in other hAT elements. Miniature inverted repeat transposable elements were found in 27% of species carrying Herves‐like elements. Phylogenetic analysis showed incongruences between transposable elements and species phylogenies, suggesting that at least four horizontal transfer events have occurred.

中文翻译：

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果蝇物种中的类似于Herves的转座因子（hAT）的特征及其进化过程。

果蝇hAT转座子的一个单一种类的组，称为Herves样，已被鉴定并发现存在于57种果蝇物种中的46％。这些元素的显着特征是在元素的两个亚末端都存在一长串微型卫星重复序列（MnR）。这些迷你卫星的拷贝数在种群之间和种群内部变化很大。筛选了覆盖其地理分布的23株果蝇果蝇的5'MnRs拷贝数多态性，显示了7到20个重复拷贝的变异。这些MnR在果蝇中保存得很好。如其他hAT元件中的短亚末端重复序列所提供的那样，这些物种可能充当转座酶结合序列。在27％的携带Herves样元素的物种中发现了微型反向重复转座因子。系统发育分析表明，转座因子与物种系统发育之间不相符，表明至少发生了四个水平转移事件。