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To address this, we examined the conservation of Piwi-interacting RNA (piRNA)-mediated defence against\n                    <jats:italic>envelope<\/jats:italic>\n                    -carrying\n                    <jats:italic>gypsy<\/jats:italic>\n                    long terminal repeat (LTR) retrotransposons across insects beyond\n                    <jats:italic>Drosophila<\/jats:italic>\n                    . We show that\n                    <jats:italic>Aedes aegypti<\/jats:italic>\n                    (yellow fever mosquito) and\n                    <jats:italic>Anopheles stephensi<\/jats:italic>\n                    (Asian malaria mosquito), as well as\n                    <jats:italic>Tetragonula carbonaria<\/jats:italic>\n                    (stingless bees),\n                    <jats:italic>Acheta domesticus<\/jats:italic>\n                    (house cricket) and\n                    <jats:italic>Teleogryllus oceanicus<\/jats:italic>\n                    (Pacific field cricket), all produce piRNAs targeting\n                    <jats:italic>gypsy<\/jats:italic>\n                    elements in ovarian somatic cells\u2014the same cellular niche where\n                    <jats:italic>Drosophila<\/jats:italic>\n                    mounts piRNA defence against\n                    <jats:italic>gypsy<\/jats:italic>\n                    \u2014indicating a persistent arms race for more than 400 million years of insect evolution. Notably, in\n                    <jats:italic>Aedes aegypti<\/jats:italic>\n                    , ovarian somatic cells express the same piRNA clusters as other somatic tissues, where they are known to target RNA viruses\u2014suggesting a shared origin of anti-viral and anti-retrotransposon defences. Furthermore, we observe lineage-specific differences in ovarian somatic piRNA biogenesis: slicing-independent phasing appears to dominate in dipterans, ping-pong amplification in bees, and slicing-dependent phasing in crickets. Together, these findings indicate that distinct piRNA pathways have independently evolved at different timepoints to silence the same class of retrotransposons in insect evolution.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1038\/s44319-026-00741-4","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,2]],"date-time":"2026-04-02T02:04:19Z","timestamp":1775095459000},"page":"2243-2273","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["Conserved but mechanistically diverse piRNA defence against endogenous retroviruses in insects"],"prefix":"10.1038","volume":"27","author":[{"given":"Shashank","family":"Chary","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2802-4533","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Patricia E","family":"Carreira","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5555-9421","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Sarah","family":"Nicholas","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Kathryn B","family":"McNamara","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ian A","family":"Cockburn","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6020-6348","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Karin","family":"Nordstr\u00f6m","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ther\u00e9sa M","family":"Jones","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2037-4267","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Rosalyn","family":"Gloag","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7334-0389","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Alyson","family":"Ashe","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Leon E","family":"Hugo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5848-9019","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Rippei","family":"Hayashi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,2]]},"reference":[{"key":"741_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"54","DOI":"10.1038\/nature23482","volume":"549","author":"PR Andersen","year":"2017","unstructured":"Andersen PR, Tirian L, Vunjak M, Brennecke J (2017) A heterochromatin-dependent transcription machinery drives piRNA expression. 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