%0 Journal Article %J Mobile DNA %D 2014 %T Tos17 rice element: incomplete but effective. %A Sabot, François %N 1 %P 10 %R 10.1186/1759-8753-5-10 %V 5 %X BACKGROUND: Tos17 was the first LTR retrotransposon (Copia) described as active in cultivated rice, and is present in two copies in the genome of the sequenced Nipponbare variety. Only the chromosome 7 copy is active and able to retrotranspose, at least during in vitro culture, and this ability was widely used in insertional mutagenesis assays. RESULTS: Here the structure of the active Tos17 was thoroughly annotated using a set of bioinformatic analyses. CONCLUSIONS: Unexpectedly, Tos17 appears to be a non-autonomous LTR retrotransposon, lacking the gag sequence and thus unable to transpose by itself. %8 2014