Active transposons in rice

Abstract

The first ‘transposon’ — that of the ‘controlling element’ of maize — was discovered by Mclintock more than half a century ago. This element was detected as a factor controlling the mutable character of kernel pigmentation. In higher plants, many mutable traits have bee found, especially for genes involved in pigmentation and endosperm quality. Recent molecular analyses have revealed that many of these mutable traits are controlled by transposons (Fedoroff et al. 1983, 1984; Bonas et al. 1984; Brown et al. 1989; Inagaki et al. 1994).