The application of a reverse transcriptase inhibitor suppresses LTR retrotransposon mobilization in plants [RNA-seq]

Recently developed methods applied to plant material, for example tissue culture during plant transformation, can induce genome instability by activating uncontrolled mobilization of LTR retrotransposons (LTR-TEs), the most abundant class of mobile genetic elements in plant genomes. Here we tested the use of Reverse Transcriptase inhibitors to avoid LTR-TE mobilization in plants. We demonstrated that the application of the drug Tenofovir in systems with high LTR-TE activity, like Arabidopsis and rice, allows generation of plants free from LTR-TE insertions without interfering with their development. We propose the use of Tenofovir as a new tool to both study LTR-TE transposition and to regenerate more genetically stable plant lines from tissue culture. Overall design: Transcriptional profile of Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings germinated in presence and absence of Tenofovir, analysed before stress, after heat stress and three days after recovery from the stress. Each condition has three biological replicates.