Comparative analysis of DNA repeats and identification of novel Fesreba centromeric element in fescues and ryagrasses

Background
Cultivated grasses are an important source of food for domestic animals worldwide. Better knowledge of their genomes can speed up the development of new cultivars with better quality and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. The most widely grown grasses are tetraploid ryegrass species ( Lolium spp.) and diploid and hexaploid fescue species (Festuca spp.). In this work, we characterized repetitive DNA sequences and their contribution to genome size in five fescue and two ryegrass species, as well as one fescue and two ryegrass cultivars.

Results
Partial genome sequences produced by Illumina technology were used for genome-wide comparative analyses using RepeatExplorer pipeline. Retrotransposons were found to be the most abundant repeat types in all seven grass species. Athila element of Ty3/gypsy family showed the most striking differences in copy number between fescues and ryegrasses. The sequence data enabled the assembly of an LTR element Fesreba, which is highly...