Plant MITEs: miniature transposable elements with major impacts

Miniature inverted repeat transposable elements (MITEs) are short, non-autonomous transposable elements that have attracted considerable attention over the years due to their ubiquitous presence and functional roles in plant genomes. A growing body of evidence points to a complex and multifaceted interplay between MITEs and host genomes. This review aims to elucidate the diverse roles of MITEs in shaping plant genome architecture, gene expression and adaptability to environmental stresses through different molecular mechanisms such as accommodation of regulatory sequences, promotion of alternative splicing, generation of epialleles and small RNAs, and mediation of structural variation. These examples highlight the functional importance of MITEs in plant genomes and provide directions for future research.