The impact of transposable elements in the evolution of plant genomes: From selfish elements to key players

Abstract

Transposable elements (TEs) are major components of all eukaryote genomes, and in particular of plant genomes. Whereas these elements have long been considered as selfish 'junk DNA without function', the data accumulated over the years have shown that they are essential components of the genome structure and key players of genome evolution. Here, we summarize the recent advancement in the field and we discuss the role of TEs in the light of the new data coming from whole plant genome sequences and next-generation sequencing (NGS) data on resequencing of plant varieties and lines.