Deciphering silencing establishment at newly inserted DNA copies: interest for transposable element-based plant breeding – NeoDNAcontrol

Transposable elements (TEs) constitute the vast majority of most eukaryotes. Because of their propensity to multiply and move, TEs represent both a motor for the evolution of genomes and a threat to their integrity. Therefore, understanding TE silencing and reactivation mechanisms is a major challenge in modern biology, and in particular in plant breeding. Current knowledge indicates that transgenes mimic the different phases of silencing of newly inserted TE copies, thus representing excellent molecular tools to investigate TE silencing. In this project we will follow transgenes and reactivated TEs to determine: i) how chromatin is assembled on newly inserted DNA, ii) what kind of RNAs they produced to activate silencing, iii) how silencing spreads systemically throughout the plant, and iv) how it eventually gets stabilized over generations.