Parental transposable element loads influence their dynamics in young Nicotiana hybrids and allotetraploids

What is it about?

Transposable elements (TEs) play an important role in genomic changes associated with allopolyploidy, a major plant speciation process. We have studied changes associated with several TE families in three young Nicotiana allotetraploid species and in de novo recreated synthetic hybrids mimicking the three species. We show that TE mobilization in allopolyploids correlates with imbalances between parental TEs and increases with parental genetic divergence, indicating that TE mobilization increases with genome shock intensity.

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