Mulberry (Morus notabilis C. K. Schneid) leaves have been used as the food for the domesticated silkworm, Bombyx mori, for more than 5000 yr, and the mulberry–silkworm relationship is one of the best‐known and oldest models of plant defense–insect adaptation. The availability of a genome assembly of mulberry provides us with an opportunity to mine the characteristics and distribution of transposable elements (TEs) in this species and to examine their relationship to genes and gene expression. In this study, a significantly correlated inverse relationship between the percentage coverage of genes and TEs was observed. The TE‐rich regions appeared to have a lower percentage of putatively expressed genes. Distribution patterns between different TE superfamilies were detected in the mulberry genome. The Copia elements (the TE making up the greatest proportion of the mulberry genome) were significantly overrepresented within genes in the mulberry genome, and they may have a dominant influence on evolution of the mulberry genome. Approximately 96.93% (330/344) of the TE‐containing genes assigned to pathways were assigned to metabolism‐related pathways. The TE‐related alternative splicing events accounted for 7.58% (402/5,302) of all alternative splicing types in the mulberry genome, suggesting that TEs are one of the driving forces in the formation of the alternatively spliced genes. The results will be valuable in improving our understanding of the important roles of TEs in mulberry genome evolution.

中文翻译：

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桑树基因组中转座子的分布和特征。

桑叶（桑属桑abiCK Schneid）已用作家养蚕Bombyx mori的食物，长达5000多年的历史，桑蚕与桑蚕的关系是植物防御－昆虫适应最著名，最古老的模型之一。桑树基因组装配的可用性为我们提供了一个机会来挖掘该物种中转座因子（TEs）的特征和分布，并研究它们与基因和基因表达的关系。在这项研究中，观察到基因和TEs的百分比覆盖率之间存在显着相关的逆关系。富含TE的区域似乎具有较低的假定表达基因百分比。在桑树基因组中检测到不同的TE超家族之间的分布模式。将Copia进一步桑树基因组中的基因中的元素（占桑树基因组最大比例的TE）显着过量表达，它们可能对桑树基因组的进化起主要作用。约有96.93％（330/344）的TE基因包含在与代谢相关的途径中。与TE相关的替代剪接事件占桑树基因组中所有替代剪接类型的7.58％（402 / 5,302），这表明TEs是替代剪接基因形成的驱动力之一。这些结果对于增进我们对TEs在桑树基因组进化中的重要作用的理解将是有价值的。