INDEPENDENT AMPLIFICATION OF 2 CLASSES OF TOURISTS IN SOME ORYZA SPECIES

Transposable elements similar to Tourist elements from maize were isol ated from the rice genome. The elements were about 300 bp, exhibited s hort terminal inverted repeats (TIR), and appeared to show preferentia l insertion at TAA sites. Some rice Tourist elements seem to have rece ntly transposed. Based on the sequences of cloned elements, two classe s of rice Tourist elements have been identified. Members of these two classes apparently amplified independently at different times in the p ast.