Long-read detection of transposable element mobilization in the soma of hypomethylated Arabidopsis thaliana individuals.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Because transposable elements (TEs) can cause heritable genetic changes, past work on TE mobility in Arabidopsis thaliana has mostly focused on new TE insertions in the germline of hypomethylated plants. It is, however, well-known that TEs can also be active in the soma, although the high-confidence detection of somatic events has been challenging.

Results

Here, we leverage the high accuracy of PacBio HiFi long reads to evaluate the somatic mobility of TEs in individuals of an A. thaliana non-reference strain lacking activity of METHYLTRANSFERASE1 (MET1), a major component of the DNA methylation maintenance machinery. Most somatically mobile families coincide with those found in germline studies of hypomethylated genotypes, although the exact TE copies differ. We

SUBMITTER: Movilli A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12312487 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature