An Atlas of Plant Transposable Elements.

Area of Science:

• Genomics
• Evolutionary Biology
• Bioinformatics

Background:

• Genomic sequencing advances reveal Earth's biodiversity and evolution.
• Transposable elements (TEs) are repetitive DNA sequences common in plant genomes, influencing genome composition and evolution.
• Plant species exhibit diverse characteristics like genome size, ploidy, and heterozygosity, affecting TE behavior.

Purpose of the Study:

• To create a comprehensive and standardized atlas of transposable element (TE) data in plant genomes.
• To analyze TEs across 67 chromosome-scale assembled plant genomes.
• To establish a standardized catalog for exploring TE functions and their genomic impact.

Main Methods:

• Evaluation of 67 plant genomes assembled at chromosome scale.
• Utilizing an easy-to-use portal (APTE website) for TE data analysis.
• Standardized annotation strategy for transposable elements.

Main Results:

• Identification and annotation of 49,802,023 TE records across 67 plant genomes.
• TEs occupy approximately 47.62% of the total genomic space analyzed.
• Discovery of novel TE types not previously cataloged in other repositories.

Conclusions:

• The developed TE atlas provides the most extensive and standardized analysis to date.
• The standardized catalog facilitates new hypotheses and exploration of TE influences on plant genomes.
• This work enhances understanding of TE function and evolutionary processes in plants.