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Retrotransposon families in rice

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Summary

Three families of retrotransposons of rice (Tos1,Tos2, andTos3) were isolated by using a method based on the sequence conservation of the primer binding site for reverse transcription. This method should be generally applicable for cloning retrotransposons of other plants. One retrotransposon,Tos3-1, was studied in detail.Tos3-1 is 5.2 kb long, has structures common to retrotransposons, such as long terminal repeats (LTR), a primer binding site complementary to the initiator tRNA, a polypurine tract, and generates target sequence duplications flanking the inserted element. Southern blotting analysis showed that sequences homologous toTosl, 2 and3 are found in wild rice species as well as in cultivated rice species, but not in maize and tobacco. The copy number and genomic location of the families vary in different strains of one species of wild rice, suggesting that these elements may still be active. Retrotransposons were also screened for by amplification of the reverse transcriptase coding region using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). At least two types of copia-like elements (Tos4] andTos5) were found. The total copy number of retrotransposons in the rice genome was estimated to be about 1000. These results suggest that, as inDrosophila, retrotransposons are the major transposon class in rice.

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Author notes

  1. Atsushi Fukuchi

    Present address: Agricultural Research Laboratories, Takeda Chemical Industries Ltd., 300-42, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular Biology, National Institute of Agrobiological Resources, 305, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

    Hirohiko Hirochika

  2. Institute of Plant Breeding, University of Tsukuba, 305, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

    Atsushi Fukuchi & Fumio Kikuchi

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  1. Hirohiko Hirochika
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  2. Atsushi Fukuchi
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Communicated by D.J. Finnegan

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Hirochika, H., Fukuchi, A. & Kikuchi, F. Retrotransposon families in rice. Molec. Gen. Genet. 233, 209–216 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00587581

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