Calendar Name: seminars Scheduled for: Tuesday, October 25 2011, 14:00 - 15:30 Event text: Prof Susan R. Wessler Dept of Botany and Plant Sciences University of California Riverside USA Details: �The success strategies of transposable elements that diversify genomes� ABSTRACT Despite the widespread prevalence of transposable elements (TEs) in the genomes of higher eukaryotes, what is virtually unknown is how they are able to amplify to high copy numbers without being silenced and without killing their host. In this seminar I will discuss our recent studies on MITEs (miniature inverted repeat transposable elements), a type of class 2 element that was discovered in my laboratory 20 years ago as the most prevalent TE associated with plant genes. To understand how MITEs can attain high copy numbers, we succeeded in identifying a MITE, mPing, in the midst of rapid amplification throughout the genomes of several related rice strains. Nextgen sequencing technologies are being employed to determine mPing�s strategies for success and to understand how mPing impacts host transcription and generates phenotypic diversity.