Identification of a genome-specific repetitive element in the Gossypium D genome
The activity of genome-specific repetitive sequence is the main cause of the genome variation between Gossypium A and D genomes. Through the comparative analysis of the two genomes, we got a repetitive element (ICRd motif), which repeats massively in the diploid Gossypium raimondii (D5) genome while almost absent in the diploid Gossypium arboreum (A2) genome. We further explored the existence of ICRd motif in G. raimondii, G. arboreum, and two tetraploids (AADD) cotton G. hirsutum and G. barbadense by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), and observed the ICRd motif exists in D5 and D-subgenomes but not in A2 and A-subgenome. The ICRd motif was investigated through its two constituents , a length variable tandem repeat region (TR) and a conservative sequence (CS), which highly repeat and evenly distribute in chromosomes of D5 genome. The ICRd motif was revealed as the common conservative region of ancient LTR-TEs. The identifications and investigation of the ICRd motif promote the study on the A and D genome differences, facilitate the research on the Gossypium genome evolution, and provide assistance to subgenome identification and genome assembling.