Exile Vol. IV No. 1

The August Rose by Virginia Wallace 8-12 Beyond the Bauxite Mines by Barbara Ann Jucius 15-19 The Harvest by Anne Irgens 20-21 Recurrence: A Prose Poem by Nikos Stangos 22-27 The Day of the Painters by Edmund Boynton 28-35 Sophomore Slump by Jerilyn Robey 37-43 POETRY These Woods by Barbara Haupt 12 The Accused by Ellen Moore 13 Aberration by Barbara Haupt 19 Hate Eats by Karen Howey 21 Evanescence by Sandra Miskelly 36 Thoughts of You by William K. Lewis 36 Three Songs by Nikos Stangos 44 In this issue the editors of EXILE are proud to publish The Accused by Ellen Moore. This poem has been awarded the semi-annual Denison Book Store - EXILE Creative Writing Prize

\u3ci\u3eDrosophila\u3c/i\u3e Muller F Elements Maintain a Distinct Set of Genomic Properties Over 40 Million Years of Evolution

The Muller F element (4.2 Mb, ~80 protein-coding genes) is an unusual autosome of Drosophila melanogaster; it is mostly heterochromatic with a low recombination rate. To investigate how these properties impact the evolution of repeats and genes, we manually improved the sequence and annotated the genes on the D. erecta, D. mojavensis, and D. grimshawi F elements and euchromatic domains from the Muller D element. We find that F elements have greater transposon density (25–50%) than euchromatic reference regions (3–11%). Among the F elements, D. grimshawi has the lowest transposon density (particularly DINE-1: 2% vs. 11–27%). F element genes have larger coding spans, more coding exons, larger introns, and lower codon bias. Comparison of the Effective Number of Codons with the Codon Adaptation Index shows that, in contrast to the other species, codon bias in D. grimshawi F element genes can be attributed primarily to selection instead of mutational biases, suggesting that density and types of transposons affect the degree of local heterochromatin formation. F element genes have lower estimated DNA melting temperatures than D element genes, potentially facilitating transcription through heterochromatin. Most F element genes (~90%) have remained on that element, but the F element has smaller syntenic blocks than genome averages (3.4–3.6 vs. 8.4–8.8 genes per block), indicating greater rates of inversion despite lower rates of recombination. Overall, the F element has maintained characteristics that are distinct from other autosomes in the Drosophila lineage, illuminating the constraints imposed by a heterochromatic milieu