Oryza rufipogon Oryza rufipogon Oryza rufipogon, known as brownbeard rice, wild rice, and red rice, is a member of the genus "Oryza". It is native to East, South and Southeast Asia. It has a close evolutionary relation to "Oryza sativa", the plant grown as a major rice food crop throughout the world. "Oryza rufipogon" is an invasive species and listed as a 'noxious weed' by the United States, and also listed as a noxious weed in Alabama, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, and Vermont. According to the North American Plant Protection Association, "O. rufipogon" blends in with cultivated
Helitron (biology) Helitron (biology) Helitrons are one of the three groups of eukaryotic class 2 transposable elements (TEs) so far described. They are the eukaryotic rolling-circle transposable elements which are hypothesized to transpose by a rolling circle replication mechanism via a single-stranded DNA intermediate. They were first discovered in plants ("Arabidopsis thaliana" and "Oryza sativa") and in the nematode "Caenorhabditis elegans", and now they have been identified in a diverse range of species, from protists to mammals. Helitrons make up a substantial fraction of many genomes where non-autonomous elements frequently outnumber the putative autonomous partner. Helitrons seem to have a major role