Mrs, a new subfamily of Tourist transposable elements.

We have characterised a new family of repetitive sequences that we have named Mrs (maize repetitive sequences). Mrs elements are associated with different maize genes and seem to be specific for the genome of Zea species. Mrs elements are short, AT-rich and contain terminal inverted repeats (TIRs). The sequence of their TIRs, as well as the fact that they are flanked by short repetitions that tend to be TAA, allows us to propose Mrs as a new subfamily of Tourist transposable elements.