Figure 1.

Helitron end sequence alignment by Lai et al. [4]. It contains the 5' and 3' termini of the maize Helitrons HelA-1 and HelB from line McC, HelA-2 from B73, the Helitron insertions in mutants sh2-7523 and ba1-Ref, and the rice Helitron2_OS. Helitron sequences are in uppercase letters and the invariant host nucleotides where the Helitrons insert are in lowercase letters. Conserved nucleotides at the 5' and 3' termini are in bold uppercase letters and the inverted repeats at the 3' termini are underlined. The nonconserved body of the Helitrons is represented by dots.