ARS | Publication request: Genomic sequence comparison of eif(iso)4E between Arabidopsis and melon

Submitted to: Plant and Animal Genome Conference
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: December 15, 2006
Publication Date: January 13, 2007
Citation: Meyer, J., Garcia-Mas, J., Havey, M.J. 2007. Genomic sequence comparison of eif(iso)4E between Arabidopsis and melon [abstract]. Plant and Animal Genome Conference. Available: www.intl-pag.org

Technical Abstract: Eukaryotic initiation factors (eifs) bind to mRNA and initiate translation in plants. Mutations in eifs condition recessively inherited virus resistances. While coding regions among eifs have been compared both within and among species, comparisons among flanking genomic sequences are lacking. We studied the eif(iso)4E gene, which is recruited by potyviruses infecting Arabidopsis, pepper, barley, and pea. A melon BAC library was probed with the eif(iso)4E gene from Arabidopsis. Two overlapping BACs were chosen for sequencing. One contig of almost 6 kb carried the melon homolog of eif(iso)4E. When this 6 kb sequence was aligned with the Arabidopsis BAC carrying eif(iso)4E, only three small regions less than 200 bp each aligned with 80-85% similarity. All of these alignments are within the eif(iso)4E coding region of eif(iso)4E, revealing that although eif(iso)4E is conserved between these divergent species, the genomic regions surrounding the gene are not conserved. These data also indicate significant sequence diversity between members of the eurosid I and II clades.