Abstract
element, retrotransposon, endogenous viral element, repeatome-based molecular markers Editorial on the Research Topic Mobile elements and plant genome evolution, comparative analyses and computational tools, volume II Mobile element and host genome evolutionThe genomes of eukaryotes are mostly composed of diverse families of interspersed repetitive sequences, including retrotransposons and transposable and endogenous viral elements.The prevailing view is that the diverse families of the genome repeatome should be considered only as parasites or "junk DNA" (Bourque et al., 2018).However, it is possible to follow genealogical trees, or pathways of evolutionary development and distribution of these elements, due to which, our understanding should be completely revised.The repeatome elements play a role that, in the sense of systems biology and medicine, goes far beyond "junk DNA" and viral fossils (Wells and Feschotte, 2020).Recent studies increasingly show that essential components, if not the most basic components of our genome, are of viral origin and that viruses as mobile genetic mediators have always played a crucial role in genetic evolution (Cosby et al., 2019).The evolution of genomes is associated with overcoming and fixing integrated events.With each important evolutionary step, the number of mobile genetic elements in the genome increased dramatically.Since the beginning of life, there has not been an organism that did not contain all these diverse mobile elements.In the formation of the genome, we can trace numerous processes involving mobile elements with their countless different appearances.Genomes are not the end product of innumerable accidental mutations and their selection, but a kind of living deposit from originally external, viral influences that is constantly being recycled and, like a chronicle, reinterpreted (Vassilieff et al., 2023).To be able to develop at all, mobile elements must have a coevolutionary relationship with their host genome (Gebrie, 2023).Evolutionary phylogenetic trees of mobile elements and the host genome show strong correlations (Kalendar et al., 2004;Kalendar et al., 2008;Moisy et al., 2014;Kalendar et al., 2020).Endogenous retroviruses, to which retrotransposons also belong, are single-stranded Frontiers in Plant Science frontiersin.