Characterization of repetitive elements in several Cucurbita species

About 1.3×10(5) copies of a tandemly arranged, 351 base pair element constitute from 4 to 8% of the Cucurbita pepo genome. A homologous, high copy number repetitive element is present in the genomes of C. moschata and C. foetidissima, but not in C. maxima or Cucumis sativus. Array lengths of at least 65 members have been detected for C. pepo, and 140 for C. moschata. The nucleotide sequence of six C. pepo repeat units were determined and each was found to be unique, differing from the others at from 7 to 23 positions. The element was composed of highly modified DNA as evidenced by the fact that only one of its two Hpa I restriction sites is subject to digestion and by the observation that all internal Cs and about half of the external Cs of its single Hpa II site are methylated. At least 5 cellular RNA species contain sequences complementary to one of the DNA strands of the element. These have discrete sizes of 3.0, 2.3, 1.8, 1.3 and 0.5 kb. Such transcripts are detected in C. pepo, C. moschata and C. foetidissima stem and/or leaf RNA, but not root RNA and are probably not polyadenylated. No transcripts were found which contain sequences complementary to the other DNA strand of the element.