Variations in chloroplast DNA from rice (Oryza sativa): differences between deletions mediated by short direct-repeat sequences within a single species

In a previous study, we compared chloroplast DNAs (ctDNAs) from four species of Oryza and detected two independent deletions of DNA fragments in the ctDNAs (Kanno and Hirai 1992a). These deletions were genotype-specific variations. Since short direct-repeat sequences were detected at the borders of both deletions, the deletions were apparently the result of intramolecular recombination mediated by these direct-repeat sequences. In the present study, we examined whether or not this type of variation exists within a single species. Ishii et al. demonstrated three types of ctDNA in O. Sativa (1988), and the source of the variations that they identified seemed to be deletions. We determined the precise locations of the deletions and the sequences around them. As expected, our results showed that these variations were the results of deletions that were mediated by short direct-repeat sequences. While the deletions that had been found previously were located on spacer regions, those found in this study were located within open reading frames (ORFs). Northern hybridization analysis showed that one of the ORFs was-transcribed. In the case of this deletion, the amino acid sequence encoded by the C-terminal region of the ORF was altered and the short inverted-repeat sequences downstream of the ORF were deleted. In addition, there were other short inverted-repeat sequences downstream of the altered ORF.