Abstract: piggyBac is a DNA transposon widespread in many organisms. IFP2 is the first piggyBac element found and has been developed as a gene vector most widely used in transgenesis of insects and mammals. Therefore, the study of piggyBac transposons in various organisms has attracted extensive interests and attention. CsuPLE, a novel member of piggyBac transposons, was cloned from Chilo suppressalis in this study with the GenBank accession no. JX392388. The sequence is 2 537 bp in length and contains a single open reading frame (ORF) of 1 914 bp encoding a transposase of 637 amino acids. Within the transposase, there is a conserved DDD-domain. The full-length sequence of CsuPLE contains a pair of perfectly symmetrical 13 bp inverted terminal repeats (ITRs) and a pair of non-completely symmetric 21 bp internal repeats (IRs). CsuPLE sequence is integrated in the “TTAA” target site duplication (TSD) of the genome. CsuPLE with similar structure was found in different geographic populations of C. suppressalis from China. This study not only provides insight into the relationship between structure and function of the piggyBac transposon but also sets up a theoretical basis for utilization of the CsuPLE transposon in transgenic research in C. suppressalis.

Key words: Chilo suppressalis; piggyBac, transposon, cloning, sequence analysis