Identification of transposable element families from pangenome polymorphisms

Transposable Elements (TEs) are segments of DNA, typically a few hundred base pairs up to several tens of thousands bases long, that have the ability to generate new copies of themselves in the genome. Most existing methods used to identify TEs in a newly sequenced genome are based on their repetitive character, together with detection based on homology and structural features. As new high quality assemblies become more common, including the availability of multiple independent assemblies from the same species, an alternative strategy for identification of TE families becomes possible in which we focus on the polymorphism at insertion sites caused by TE mobility.

We develop the idea of using the structural polymorphisms found in pangenomes to create a library of the TE families recently active in a species, or in a closely related group of species. We present a tool, pantera, that achieves this task, and illustrate its use both on species with well-curated libraries, and on new assemblies.

Our results show that pantera is sensitive and accurate, tending to correctly identify complete elements with precise boundaries, and is particularly well suited to detect larger, low copy number TEs that are often undetected with existing de novo methods.