Light and shadow on the mechanisms of integration site selection in yeast Ty retrotransposon families

Transposable elements are ubiquitous in genomes. Their successful expansion depends part on their sites of integration host genome. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, evolution has selected various strategies to target the five Ty LTR-retrotransposon families into gene-poor regions a genome, where coding sequences occupy 70% DNA. The Ty1/Ty2/Ty4 and Ty3 occurs upstream at transcription start site genes transcribed by RNA polymerase III, respectively. Ty5 completely different preferences, targeting heterochromatin regions. Here, we review history that led identification cellular tethering factors play major role anchoring retrotransposons preferred sites. We also question involvement additional fine-tuning selection, with several studies converging towards an importance structure organization chromatin.