Transposable Elements and Phenotypic Variation in Plants
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Plant Sciences".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 July 2023) | Viewed by 15954
Special Issue Editors
Interests: plant genomics; genome sequencing; plant breeding; repetitive DNA; transposons
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: bioinformatics application to plant breeding; plant structural and functional genomics; bioinformatics; genome structure and evolution; genome sequencing; crop improvement
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Transposable elements (TEs) are mobile DNA sequences that are able to change their chromosomal location. These sequences, which are present in the nuclear genomes of all eukaryotes, were first isolated in consequence of the polymorphisms they induced in hosts. The huge abundance of TEs in plant genomes necessarily results in their interaction with genes over long evolutionary scales. The mutagenic action of TEs creates substantial genetic variability. The proliferation of TEs introduces novel functions via fine-tuning gene activity, contributing, through epigenetic regulation, to the organization of the genome or, after the elements become transcriptionally inactive, introducing a structural variation in insertion sites. Transposition-related changes rarely offer an immediate fitness benefit to their host; rather, they produce neutral mutations that become fixed in the population because of genetic drift. However, in some cases, TE activity can result in phenotypic variations.
In this Special Issue, the contributing authors explore these subjects from a range of perspectives, especially focusing on the potential role of TEs in adaptive evolution and on their impact on gene expression both at locus and genome level, with a look to the effect of transposition in determining changes in phenotypic traits.
Prof. Dr. Andrea Cavallini
Dr. Flavia Mascagni
Dr. Gabriele Usai
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- Transposable elements
- Plant mobile elements
- Retrotransposons
- Transposon-related structural variations
- Transposon-related phenotypic variations
- Transposon activation
- Transposon silencing
- Transposon structure
- Transposon dynamics
- Transposon evolution
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