International Congress on Transposable Elements (ICTE) 2012 in Saint Malo and the sea of TE stories

Abdelkader Ainouche,Jean-Marc Deragon,Clémentine Vitte,Olivier Panaud,Chantal Vaury,Richard Cordaux,Cristina Vieira,Hadi Quesneville,Mireille Bétermier,Gaël Cristofari,Pascale Lesage,Mick Chandler

doi:10.1186/1759-8753-3-17

Abstract

An international conference on Transposable Elements (TEs) was held 21–24 April 2012 in Saint Malo, France. Organized by the French Transposition Community (GDR Elements Génétiques Mobiles et Génomes, CNRS) and the French Society of Genetics (SFG), the conference’s goal was to bring together researchers from around the world who study transposition in diverse organisms using multiple experimental approaches. The meeting drew more than 217 attendees and most contributed through poster presentations (117), invited talks and short talks selected from poster abstracts (48 in total). The talks were organized into four scientific sessions, focused on: impact of TEs on genomes, control of transposition, evolution of TEs and mechanisms of transposition. Here, we present highlights from the talks given during the platform sessions. The conference was sponsored by Alliance pour les sciences de la vie et de la santé (Aviesan), Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale (INSERM), Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD), Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA), Université de Perpignan, Université de Rennes 1, Région Bretagne and Mobile DNA.Chair of the organization committeeJean-Marc DeragonOrganizersAbdelkader Ainouche, Mireille Bétermier, Mick Chandler, Richard Cordaux, Gaël Cristofari, Jean-Marc Deragon, Pascale Lesage, Didier Mazel, Olivier Panaud, Hadi Quesneville, Chantal Vaury, Cristina Vieira and Clémentine Vitte

Highlights

Introduction and keynote lectureJean-Marc Deragon Transposable elements (TEs) are truly fascinating biological entities
Curcio characterized several cellular factors required for the formation of retrosomes, microscopically distinct foci where retrotransposonencoded RNA and proteins localize, inside the yeast cell. These cofactors are not necessary for Ty1 RNA and Gag protein expression or virus-like particle (VLP) formation, Ty1 cDNA is strongly reduced in their absence, suggesting that retrosome formation may be a required step in the production of replication-competent VLPs
Rong (National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA) reported that Drosophila telomeric retroposons are an excellent system to study interactions between host and transposable element transcriptional gene silencing (TGS) (TE). When analyzing their targeting to chromosome ends, he showed that these elements are under multiple modes of host regulation: in the germline, expression from the elements is suppressed by Piwi-interacting RNAs involved in the so-called Piwiinteracting RNAs (piRNA) pathway while in the soma, cell cycle-specific regulation limits their expression to a narrow window of the Sphase

Summary

Introduction

Introduction and keynote lectureJean-Marc Deragon Transposable elements (TEs) are truly fascinating biological entities. These cofactors are not necessary for Ty1 RNA and Gag protein expression or VLP formation, Ty1 cDNA is strongly reduced in their absence, suggesting that retrosome formation may be a required step in the production of replication-competent VLPs. The L1 non-LTR retrotransposon is the most abundant and active mobile element in the human genome.

Results

Conclusion