COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF LTR RETROTRANSPOSONS POPULATION INHABITING Solanum pennelli AND Solanum lycopersicum GENOMES

ANDINO, NATALIA ; ANAHÍ M. YAÑEZ SANTOS; PAZ, ROSALÍA

San Juan

Jornada; II Reunión Argentina de Jóvenes Botánicos; 2016

Universidad Nacional de San Juan

Solanum pennelli is a wild tomato species endemic to Andean regions in South America. Meanwhile, Solanum lycopersicum is a domesticated species of high economic value for its agronomical importance. Both species are highly divergent within the Solanaceae´s family, but are still related enough to produce viable progeny. The haploid genome size of S. pennellii has been estimated to be ~1200 Mb, and in S. lycopersicum ~950 Mb, where differences in genome size are mainly attributed to the accumulation of LTR retroelements. We performed a genome-wide LTR retroelement annotation based on structural, functional and time-insertion selection for the identification of potentially active retroelements. We identified numerical differences and Copia:Gypsy (C:G) ratios between the genomes, containing wild tomato nearly 3-fold more LTR retroelements than cultivated one; and a higher C:G ratio. Most of the families of LTR retroelements identified previously in S. lycopersicum were also present in S. pennelli. Also, some families identified as high copy number such as GypsySL_01 and CopiaSL_37 in domesticated tomato are also abundant in the wild species analyzed. However, we observed differences in the LTR retroelements family time-insertion estimation, revealing recent divergences in retroelements populations between both species. The application of this information for molecular marker design will be discussed.