Wheat retrotransposon families identified by reverse transcriptase domain analysis.

Variations in the reverse transcriptase domain were analyzed to clarify the family structure of retrotransposons in the wheat genome. Seven families were identified on the basis of the nucleotide sequence similarities of the domain. These families are common to the genomes of ancestral diploid species of wheat, evidence that they were established prior to diploid speciation, and their presence in barley and rice was suggested. Recent activity of some of the families was inferred in wheat on the basis of data that included synonymous and nonsynonymous nucleotide substitution rates in the reverse transcriptase domain.