The Ty1 LTR-retrotransposon population in Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome: dynamics and sequence variations during mobility

Transposable element (TE) evolution in genomes has mostly been deduced from comparative genome analyses. TEs often account for a large proportion of the eukaryotic nuclear genome (up to 50%, depending on the species). Among the many existing genomic copies, only a small fraction may contribute to the mobility of a TE family. We have identified here, using a genetic screening procedure to trap Ty1 long terminal repeat-retrotransposon insertions in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which among the populations of resident Ty1 copies are responsible for Ty1 mobility. Although the newly inserted Ty1 copies resulting from a single round of transposition were found to originate from a limited subset of Ty1 resident copies, they showed a high degree of diversity at the nucleotide level, mainly due to the reverse transcription-mediated recombination. In this process, highly expressed and strikingly nonautonomous mutant Ty1 were found to be the most frequently used resident copies, which suggests that nonautonomous elements play a key role in the dynamics of the Ty1 family.