The current revolution in transposable element biology enabled by long reads

Abstract

Technological advancement in DNA sequencing read-length has drastically changed the quality and completeness of decoded genomes. The aim of this article is not to describe the different technologies of long-read sequencing, or the widely appreciated power of this technology in genome sequencing, assembly, and gene annotation. Instead, in this article, we provide our opinion that with the exception of genome production, transposable element biology is the most radically altered field as a consequence of the advent of long-read sequencing technology. We review how long-reads have been used to answer key questions in transposable element biology, and how in the future long-reads will help elucidate the function of the repetitive fraction of genomes.