Ty3/gypsy-like retrotransposon sequences in tomato

Abstract

Polymerase chain reactions (PCRs) were carried out with DNAs of eight tomato species using primers directed at the reverse transcriptase domain of Ty3/gypsy-like LTR retrotransposons. All DNAs gave PCR products of the expected size which, after cloning and sequencing, were confirmed as representing Ty3/gypsy-like elements. The sequences were heterogeneous, only 3 of the 16 being identical and the most diverse showing 124/426 pairwise nucleotide differences. Multiple alignment and construction of neighbor joining trees divided the sequences into six groups, three comprising five, three, and five sequences respectively, and the other three containing a single sequence each.