Miniature inverted-repeat transposable elements (MITEs) are short non-autonomous DNA transposons that play an important role in genome structure and function. Here, we described a novel family of MITEs, named Scatter, identified from the genomes of three strains of the fungus Botrytis cinerea (T4, B05.10, and TBC-A). Intact Scatter elements are typically an average of 247 bp, and contain 41 bp terminal inverted repeats (TIRs) and 2-bp "TA" target site duplications (TSDs). Based a search against the transposable elements database and GenBank, Scatter is a novel and potentially species-specific family of MITEs. Moderate heterogeneity in sequence and size of individual Scatter copies suggests that Scatter elements were not recently proliferated. Most integrated sites were conserved across all three strains tested and elements inserted at equivalent sites shared high identity at the nucleotide level. This conservation, in combination with the presence of a similar copy number (22-24), in B. cinerea strains tested suggests that Scatter may be a relic of an ancient transposition developed prior to the strain divergence of B. cinerea. Two unique insertion instances were observed, indicating that some copies of Scatter may have remained active following strain divergence of B. cinerea. Because only a few subtle insertion differences among B. cinerea strains were observed, Scatter may play only a minor role in the genetic diversity in B. cinerea species. Most Scatter elements appear to be inserted in potential regulatory regions of adjacent coding regions, highlighting their role in transcriptional regulation. The origin of Scatter remains to be addressed. Scatter is the first well-characterized family of MITEs in B. cinerea.: Additional supporting information may be found in the online version of this article at the publisher's web-site
IntroductionTransposable elements (TEs), characterized by their ability to "jump" or transpose within genome, make up a large fraction of the eukaryotic genome and have a substantial impact on genome function and evolution [1][2][3][4]. Given the abundance and diversity of TEs, the classification and naming system of TEs has been inconsistent [5]. Although currently used classification systems for TEs largely differ from one another on a lower level, it has been commonly accepted that, at the highest level, Miniature inverted-repeat transposable elements (MITEs), first discovered in maize [7] and found to be widespread in eukaryotes and prokaryotes [6], are a heterogeneous group of non-autonomous DNA transposons that share structural characteristics, including short length (<600 bp), conserved terminal inverted repeats (TIRs), non-coding capacity of internal sequence, target site duplications (TSDs), high A þ T content, tendency to insert into intergenic regions, and the potential to form stable secondary structure [6]. Base on their TIR and TSD sequence signatures, most MITEs can be assigned to one of two major superfamilies, Tourist and Stowaway, although a few ones cannot be classifi...