Abstract
Transposable elements (TEs) and their derivatives are highly abundant in plant genomes. The potential mobilization of TEs poses a constant threat to genome integrity; this hazardous situation may explain why epigenetic regulation initially emerged. Plants use different epigenetic silencing mechanisms to restrain TE mobility during different stages of their life cycle. DNA methylation, posttranslational modification of histone tails and small RNA-based pathways contribute to restraining TE activity. The frontier between these mechanisms is sometimes blurry, and their exact contributions are complicated to delineate. The availability of several silencing mechanisms provides versatility that has allowed the hosts’ genomes to individualize the silencing of particular TEs. There is recent evidence, particularly in Arabidopsis thaliana, that the silencing of TEs is much more dynamic than had been previously thought and can be relieved in certain cell lineages or under adverse environmental conditions.
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