Broken, silent, and in hiding: tamed endogenous pararetroviruses escape elimination from the genome of sugar beet (Beta vulgaris).

Our study in beet illustrates the variability of EPRV structure and sequence in a single host genome. Evidence of sequence fragmentation and epigenetic silencing implies possible plant strategies to cope with long-term persistence of EPRVs, including amplification, fixation in the heterochromatin, and containment of EPRV virulence.