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Call for papers - Transposable elements in genome evolution

Guest Editors:
Robert Kofler, PhD, Institut für Populationsgenetik, Vetmeduni Vienna, Austria
Miriam K. Konkel, MD, Center for Human Genetics, Clemson University, USA

Leandro Quadrana, PhD, CNRS, University of Paris-Saclay, France
Jürgen Schmitz, PD PhD, Institute of Experimental Pathology, University of Münster, Germany

Submission Status: Open   |   Submission Deadline: 21 December 2024


Genome Biology is calling for submissions to our Collection on transposons and related genetic elements and their role in shaping genome evolution.

Meet the Guest Editors

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Robert Kofler, PhD, Institut für Populationsgenetik, Vetmeduni Vienna, Austria

Robert studied agriculture and obtained a PhD in molecular plant breeding. He is currently Group leader at the Vetmeduni Vienna. Robert first came into contact with transposable elements (TEs) during his doctoral work, but as a source of frustration rather than a research focus, as TEs thwarted his efforts to develop molecular markers for the highly repetitive rye genome. Soon this frustration turned into a passion. Robert is now fascinated by the evolutionary conflict between TEs and their hosts and how this interaction shapes species genomes.

Miriam K. Konkel, MD, Center for Human Genetics, Clemson University, USA

Miriam studied medicine at the Charité in Berlin, Germany and received her medical degree from the Humboldt University. She began investigating transposable elements during her postdoc in Dr Batzer’s group at Louisiana State University. She is currently a group leader at Clemson University in South Carolina where she studies the evolution of transposable elements as well as the impact of transposable elements on genomes at the DNA and RNA level. She has performed mobilome and phylogenetic analyses for a number of genome projects and is a contributing member of the Human Genome Structural Variation and the Telomere-to-Telomere Primate consortia.

Leandro Quadrana, PhD, CNRS, University of Paris-Saclay, France

Leandro received his PhD in Biology from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. His research focuses on understanding how genetic diversity within species is shaped, particularly looking at the role of transposable elements and their regulation. Using recent advancements in population genomics, he has explored how these genetic elements vary in different plant species and their effects. Currently, he leads the Quantitative Genomics and Epigenomics team at the University of Paris-Saclay, France, where they study how genetic and epigenetic factors influence transposition activity in nature and their implications for the adaptation of plants to drastic environmental changes.

Jürgen Schmitz, PD PhD, Institute of Experimental Pathology, University of Münster, Germany

Jürgen Schmitz received his PhD in evolutionary zoology on social insects in 1997 at the University of Berlin. For five years, he led a primate genetics and evolution group at the German Primate Center in Göttingen and established retrotransposons as molecular markers. In 2003, he moved to the University of Münster as a group leader in the evolution of mammalian small RNAs, exonization of transposons, and retrotransposons as significant phylogenetic markers. He contributed to many vertebrate genome sequencing projects. His group developed user-friendly bioinformatic tools to screen and analyze genomes for evolutionary diagnostic transposons, statistics, and parallelized selection analyses.

About the collection

Genome Biology is calling for submissions to our Collection on transposons and related genetic elements and their role in shaping genome evolution.

Transposable elements have emerged as integral contributors to genomic diversity, adaptation, and evolution. Their mobility shapes the architecture of genomes, influencing gene regulation, genome size, and ultimately, the phenotypic variability within populations. Unraveling the dynamics of transposons provides insights into the evolutionary forces governing the development and adaptation of organisms over time. 

This collection aims to showcase the latest research on the role of transposons and related genetic elements in shaping genome evolution. Topics accepted for submission include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Evolutionary dynamics of transposon families within genomes
  • Evolution of regulatory roles of transposons in gene expression
  • Comparative genomics highlighting transposon-mediated evolutionary events
  • Co-evolution between transposons and host genomes
  • Ecological and environmental influences on transposon evolution
  • Transposon evolution and disease 
  • Novel computational approaches for studying transposon dynamics
  • Retrophylogenomics


Image provided by Guest Editor Jürgen Schmitz.

There are currently no articles in this collection.

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of original Research, Method, Short Report, Review, and Database article types. Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you have read our submission guidelines

To submit your manuscript to this Collection, please use our online submission system and indicate in your covering letter that you would like the article to be considered for inclusion in the "Transposable elements in genome evolution" Collection.

All articles submitted to Collections are peer reviewed in line with the journal’s standard peer review policy and are subject to all of the journal’s standard editorial and publishing policies. This includes the journal’s policy on competing interests. 

The Guest Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Guest Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editor or Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.