We have surveyed 18 natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster for the presence of 23 retrotransposon-gene-association alleles (i.e., the presence of an LTR retrotransposon sequence in or within 1,000 bp of a gene) recently identified in the sequenced D. melanogaster genome. The identified associations were detected only in the D. melanogaster populations. The majority (61%) of the identifi...

Retrotransposons are ubiquitous mobile genetic elements constituting a major part of eukaryotic genomes. Yet, monitoring retrotransposition and subsequent copy number increases in multicellular eukaryotes is intrinsically difficult. By following the transgenerational accumulation of a newly activated retrotransposon EVADE (EVD) in Arabidopsis, we noticed fast expansion of activated elements tra...

Retrotransposons are the main components of eukaryotic genomes, representing up to 80% of some large plant genomes. These mobile elements transpose via a "copy and paste" mechanism, thus increasing their copy number while active. Their accumulation is now accepted as the main factor of genome size increase in higher eukaryotes, besides polyploidy. However, the dynamics of this process are poorl...

Sophisticated mechanisms that preserve genome integrity are critical to ensure the maintenance of regenerative capacity while preventing transformation of somatic stem cells (SCs), yet little is known about mechanisms regulating genome maintenance in these cells. Here, we show that intestinal stem cells (ISCs) induce the Argonaute family protein Piwi in response to JAK/STAT signaling during acu...

Traditionally, Sicilian blood oranges (Citrus sinensis) have been associated with cardiovascular health, and consumption has been shown to prevent obesity in mice fed a high-fat diet. Despite increasing consumer interest in these health-promoting attributes, production of blood oranges remains unreliable due largely to a dependency on cold for full color formation. We show that Sicilian blood o...

the effectiveness of irap, remap, ssr, and issr markers were investigated to assess genetic diversity among and within eight medicago sativa l. populations. a total of 101, 119, 117 loci and 31 alleles were amplified using 10 irap, 14 remap, 16 issr and eight ssr primers, respectively. irap markers generated the maximum proportion of polymorphic loci per primer (pplp) while the maximum value of...

Retrotransposons with long terminal repeats (LTRs) more than 3 kb are not frequent in most eukaryotic genomes. Rice LTR retrotransposon, Retrosat2, has LTRs greater than 3.2 kb and two open reading frames (ORF): ORF1 encodes enzymes for retrotransposition whereas no function can be assigned to ORF0 as it is not found in any other organism. A variety of experimental and in silico approaches were...

Genomic diversity of Portuguese accessions of Avena species--diploid A. strigosa and hexaploids A. sativa and A. sterilis--was evaluated through molecular and cytological analysis of 45S rDNA, and other repetitive sequences previously studied in cereal species--rye subtelomeric sequence (pSc200) and cereal centromeric sequence (CCS1). Additionally, retrotransposons and microsatellites targeting...

The most abundant transposable elements (TEs) in plant genomes are Class I long terminal repeat (LTR) retrotransposons represented by superfamilies gypsy and copia Amplification of these superfamilies directly impacts genome structure and contributes to differential patterns of genome size evolution among plant lineages. Utilizing short-read Illumina data and sequence information from a panel o...