After its transfer to Arabidopsis thaliana, an increase in PHRE2 copy number occurred in the T 3 plants compared to in the T 2 plants. A genome-wide scan showed that the moso bamboo genome has only one full-length sequence of PHYRE2. In addition, PHRE2 possessed a prime binding site (PBS), a polypurine tract (PPT), and two typical sequences of LTR retrotransposons. The coding frames of these essential domains were complete and had no apparent mutations. PHRE2 contains all domains necessary for transposition such as gag, pr, rt, rh, and int. The 5′ and 3′ LTR sequences of PHRE2 were highly (98.39%) similar. In the present study, using LTR-STRUC, a full-length intact long terminal repeat (LTR) retrotransposon was identified in the moso bamboo genome and was named PHRE2 ( Phyllostachys edulis retrotransposon 2). Insertional mutagenesis based on endogenous active transposons may thus serve as an alternative method to create new germplasm of moso bamboo. Due to infrequent sexual reproduction, moso bamboo breeding by hybridization is extremely technically difficult.
