Retrotransposon Evolution in Diverse Plant Genomes

Retrotransposon evolution in diverse plant genomes.

Retrotransposon or retrotransposon-like sequences have been reported to be conserved components of cereal centromeres. Here we show that the published sequences are derived from a single conventional Ty3-gypsy family or a nonautonomous derivative. Both autonomous and nonautonomous elements are likely to have colonized Poaceae centromeres at the time of a common ancestor but have been maintained...

Evolution of Plant Genomes

Retrotransposon mobilization in cancer genomes

The Cancer Genome Atlas project was initiated by the National Cancer Institute in order to characterize the genomes of hundreds of tumors of various cancer types. While much effort has been put into detecting somatic genomic variation in these data, somatic structural variation induced by the activity of transposable element insertions has not been reported. Transposable elements (TEs) are part...

Sequence evolution and copy number of Ty1-copia retrotransposons in diverse plant genomes.

Sequence evolution of the reverse transcriptase (RT) gene in retrotransposons belonging to the Ty1-copia class was studied in 11 plant species. Phylogenetic reconstruction of the evolutionary history of RT sequences indicated a strong pattern of purifying selection, manifested as high ratios of third to first plus second codon position substitutions, and low ratios of nonsynonymous substitution...

Diverse retrotransposon families and an AT-rich satellite DNA revealed in giant genomes of Fritillaria lilies.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS The genus Fritillaria (Liliaceae) comprises species with extremely large genomes (1C = 30 000-127 000 Mb) and a bicontinental distribution. Most North American species (subgenus Liliorhiza) differ from Eurasian Fritillaria species by their distinct phylogenetic position and increased amounts of heterochromatin. This study examined the contribution of major repetitive element...