Presence of miniature inverted-repeat transposable elements (MITEs) in the genome of Arabidopsis thaliana:: characterisation of the Emigrant family of elements

Although the genome of Arabidopsis thaliana has a small amount of repetitive DNA, it contains representatives of most classes of mobile elements. However, to date, no miniature inverted-repeat transposable element (MITE) has been described in this plant. Here, we describe a new family of repeated sequences that we have named Emigrant, which are dispersed in the genome of Arabidopsis and fulfil all the requirements of MITEs. These sequences are short, AT-rich, have terminal inverted repeats (TIRs), and do not seem to have any coding capacity. Evidence for the mobility of Emigrant elements has been obtained from the absence of one of these elements in a specific Arabidopsis ecotype. Emigrant is also present in the genome of different Brassicae and its TIRs are 74% identical to those of Wujin elements, a recently described family of MITEs from the yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti.