The evolution of Ty1-copia group retrotransposons in eukaryote genomes.

The Ty1-copia group of LTR retrotransposons has been studied extensively in yeast and Drosophila, the organisms in which they were first discovered, and more recently in higher plant and vertebrate species. Their properties, such as copy number, sequence homogeneity, transcriptional and transpositional activity vary greatly between these different hosts. We will try to resolve these apparent discrepancies between these properties, explain any fundamental differences in the biology of the Ty1-copia group between hosts, and propose a general model for LTR retrotransposon evolution.