Characterising novel S-RNase and SFB alleles in Prunus virginiana

SummarySelf-incompatibility (SI) in the genus Prunus is controlled by alleles of two genes at the S-locus, S-RNase and SFB. Both genes exhibit high levels of polymorphism and sequence diversity, characteristic of plant self-incompatibility systems. In this study, eight S-RNase alleles and five SFB alleles were isolated from five accessions of P. virginiana using PCR. These alleles were novel and have been submitted to GeneBank with the following Accession Numbers: S1-RNase – S8-RNase (JF907557 – JF907564), SFB1 (JF907565), SFB2 (JF907566), and SFB4 (JF907567). The Accession Numbers of SFB7 and SFB8 are the same as S7-RNase and S8-RNase, respectively. These S-RNase and SFB alleles shared the typical structural features of the equivalent alleles in other Prunus species. The identities of the deduced amino acid sequences range from 70.5 – 80.9% among the S-RNase alleles, and from 66.5 – 82.9% among the SFB alleles. The S-RNase and SFB genes were transcribed in opposite directions. The distances between pairs...