AUTHOR=Coline Goriaux , Théron Emmanuelle , Brasset Emilie , Vaury Chantal 

TITLE=History of the discovery of a master locus producing piRNAs: the flamenco/COM locus in Drosophila melanogaster

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Genetics

VOLUME=5

YEAR=2014

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2014.00257

DOI=10.3389/fgene.2014.00257

ISSN=1664-8021

ABSTRACT=<p>The discovery of transposable elements (TEs) in the 1950s by B. McClintock implied the existence of cellular regulatory systems controlling TE activity. The discovery of <italic>flamenco</italic> (<italic>flam)</italic> an heterochromatic locus from <italic>Drosophila melanogaster</italic> and its ability to survey several TEs such as <italic>gypsy</italic>, <italic>ZAM,</italic> and <italic>Idefix</italic> contributed to peer deeply into the mechanisms of the genetic and epigenetic regulation of TEs. <italic>flam</italic> was the first cluster producing small RNAs to be discovered long before RNAi pathways were identified in 1998. As a result of the detailed genetic analyses performed by certain laboratories and of the sophisticated genetic tools they developed, this locus has played a major role in our understanding of piRNA mediated TE repression in animals. Here we review the first discovery of this locus and retrace decades of studies that led to our current understanding of the relationship between genomes and their TE targets.</p>