title: Miniature inverted-repeat transposable elements: discovery, distribution, and activity.
abstract: Eukaryotic organisms have dynamic genomes, with transposable elements (TEs) as a major contributing factor. Although the large autonomous TEs can significantly shape genomic structures during evolution, genomes often harbor more miniature nonautonomous TEs that can infest genomic niches where large TEs are rare. In spite of their cut-and-paste transposition mechanisms that do not inherently favor copy number increase, miniature inverted-repeat transposable elements (MITEs) are abundant in eukaryotic genomes and exist in high copy numbers. Based on the large number of MITE families revealed in previous studies, accurate annotation of MITEs, particularly in newly sequenced genomes, will identify more genomes highly rich in these elements. Novel families identified from these analyses, together with the currently known families, will further deepen our understanding of the origins, transposase sources, and dramatic amplification of these elements.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Biology, University of Toronto at Mississauga, 3359 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6, Canada.
authors.forename: Isam
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Fattash
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rooke
authors.forename: Amy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.forename: Caleb
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hui
authors.forename: Tina
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Luu
authors.forename: Priyanka
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bhardwaj
authors.forename: Guojun
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements / Q000235:genetics*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D016678:Genome; D018745:Genome, Plant; D023281:Genomics; D006801:Humans; D055029:Inverted Repeat Sequences; D010802:Phylogeny; D019895:Transposases
chemical_list: D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D019895:Transposases