Abstract
Tree peony is an important horticultural plant worldwide of great ornamental and medicinal value. Long terminal repeat retrotransposons (LTR-retrotransposons) are the major components of most plant genomes and can substantially impact the genome in many ways. It is therefore crucial to understand their sequence characteristics, genetic distribution and transcriptional activity; however, no information about them is available in tree peony. Ty1-copia-like reverse transcriptase sequences were amplified from tree peony genomic DNA by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with degenerate oligonucleotide primers corresponding to highly conserved domains of the Ty1-copia-like retrotransposons in this study. PCR fragments of roughly 270 bp were isolated and cloned, and 33 sequences were obtained. According to alignment and phylogenetic analysis, all sequences were divided into six families. The observed difference in the degree of nucleotide sequence similarity is an indication for high level of sequence heterogeneity among these clones. Most of these sequences have a frame shift, a stop codon, or both. Dot-blot analysis revealed distribution of these sequences in all the studied tree peony species. However, different hybridization signals were detected among them, which is in agreement with previous systematics studies. Reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) indicated that Ty1-copia retrotransposons in tree peony were transcriptionally inactive. The results provide basic genetic and evolutionary information of tree peony genome, and will provide valuable information for the further utilization of retrotransposons in tree peony.