Most of the largest vertebrate genomes are found in salamanders, a clade of amphibians that includes 686 species. Salamander genomes range in size from 14 to 120 Gb, reflecting the accumulation of lar
Background: The piRNA pathway has been shown in model organisms to be involved in silencing of transposons thereby providing genome stability. In D. melanogaster the majority of piRNAs map to these se
Germline genome defense evolves to recognize and suppress retrotransposons. One of defensive mechanisms is the PIWI-associated RNA (piRNA) pathway, which employs small RNAs for sequence-specific repre
