Genomes are key to unlocking life’s evolutionary historical past. The presence and absence of sure genetic sequences and mutations can provide us clues to the order through which species diverge. However, even state-of-the-art strategies battle to precisely map evolutionary occasions from lots of of thousands and thousands of years in the past. Published in Current Biology, a brand new methodology from scientists on the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) harnesses ‘leaping genes’ to recreate the termite tree of life, showcasing a brand new manner for researchers to resolve historic evolutionary mysteries.
“Phylogenetic trees, which map the relationships between different organisms, are pivotal to the field of evolutionary biology. They help us to understand the origins of modern biodiversity and inform conservation strategies”, says Professor Thomas Bourguignon, creator on the research and head of the OIST Evolutionary Genomics Unit. “However, challenges arise when trying to predict evolution across deep history. Phylogenetic signals are often weak, and radiation events, where species rapidly diversify over a short period, add complexity, making it difficult to identify the order that individual species emerged. Our new method supports researchers to tackle these tricky scenarios”.
What makes a gene ‘soar’? Transposons defined
Certain DNA sequences, known as ‘transposable parts’, or ‘transposons’, can transfer from one place to a different, inflicting mutations and rising genetic variability. Transposons are considerable within the genomes of eukaryotes-organisms having cells with nuclei encapsulating their genomes, together with animals, crops and fungi. In reality, they type as much as 50% of human genomes, and extra in another eukaryotes.
Despite their abundance, transposons have been considerably ignored in favor of different DNA marker sequences for tree of life development. “Until recent advances in sequencing technologies and bioinformatics annotation tools, transposon characterization at genome level was difficult,” explains first creator Cong Liu, PhD scholar at OIST. “Phylogenetics has tended to focus on conserved genes, such as those encoding proteins critical for life, which are common across different species. These usually only change slowly over time, so are good for examining changes over evolutionary timescales.”
This gradual fee of change comes with a draw back; it might probably grow to be tough to resolve fast radiation occasions, as there could also be very restricted variations in these conserved genes between species. In such instances, transposons might present useful info on species divergence, given their energetic motion throughout the genome.
A brand new solution to construct phylogenetic bushes
To show the usefulness of transposons, the workforce first needed to acquire knowledge, sequencing 45 termite and two cockroach genomes, as published in December 2025 in Nature Communications. They chosen a various vary of species to symbolize the totally different households and subfamilies of the insect lineage, learning every genome rigorously to determine nearly 38,000 transposon households throughout the totally different species.
By analyzing the presence and absence of transposons throughout the 47 species, the workforce constructed a tree of life, mapping when every species appeared to diverge from earlier ancestors. They then in contrast their tree to beforehand revealed termite bushes of life. “We achieved similar accuracy to trees built from thousands of protein marker sequence alignments.” notes Prof. Bourguignon.
Overcoming DNA degradation challenges
Although this research used comparatively wealthy genomic info, the strategies might maintain for extra restricted knowledge, opening new prospects for analysis primarily based on older specimens reminiscent of historic museum collections.
“It’s often not possible to get ‘nice’ genomic data,” says Mr. Liu. “DNA degrades naturally over time, and faster in hotter and more humid climates, as many biodiversity hotspots tend to be. This can be a problem even in short timescales, just going from collecting a specimen to sequencing. But it’s particularly an issue when working with historical samples from old collections.”
Methods which work with extra fragmented knowledge are essential in enabling researchers to extract helpful info, supporting each evolutionary research and biodiversity mapping efforts. Since transposons are very brief sequences, they may even be retrieved from fragmented DNA samples.
Termites and past
The workforce is not performed learning termites and is utilizing their genomic knowledge to result in new insights into termite physiology, social constructions and even dietary evolution, inspecting the origins of their wooden and soil-based diets. However, they hope this research will encourage researchers throughout wider fields to discover biodiversity and evolution all through the animal kingdom.
“Our methods are complementary to existing phylogenetic techniques. We hope to inspire others to look towards transposons to unlock new evolutionary information and clarify longstanding mysteries within trees of life”, says Prof. Bourguignon.