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Most extant plant DNA is derived from transposable elements (TEs). Yet, despite the obvious evolutionary success of TEs, most are epigenetically silenced under normal conditions. This continuous arms-race between TE proliferation and host suppression affects much more than genome size. For example, the epigenetic silencing of TEs reduces the expression of nearby genes and drives the divergence of gene expression between species. It also affects many poorly understood aspects of their biology, such as hybrid vigor, genome dominance, and responses to stress. Understanding the dynamics of the host:TE interactions is therefore central to understanding the function and evolution of genomes. We seek to study various intriguing aspects of the host:TE interactions, by focusing both on mechanistic and evolutionary perspectives.
