Modelling the dynamics of transposable elements in genomes under asexual reproduction using agent-based model

Abstract Transposable elements (TEs) are abundantly present in eukaryotic genomes and can be likened to parasites colonizing a genome due to their properties. From this perspective, a population-based approach has been developed to model interactions between TEs and a genome population. The distribution of TEs within a population of genomes is studied over the long term to understand the mechanisms allowing TEs to persist despite their deleterious effects on genomes. Under this single restrictive assumption, the results show that the population of TEs can persist for a very long time within the genome population, when the genome population is highly diverse in terms of the distribution of TEs quantities. When there is no mechanism for silencing TEs, the proposed model of asexual reproduction either purges TEs or leads to co-extinction of genomes and TEs. On the other hand, with a high proportion of silenced TEs, the population of TEs can be maintained for a long time in the population of genomes.