Studies of self-incompatibility in wild tomatoes:: I.: S-allele diversity in Solanum chilense Dun. (Solanaceae)

We characterized the molecular allelic variation of RNases at the self- incompatibility (SI) locus of Solanum chilense Dun. We recovered 30 S-RNase allele sequences from 34 plants representing a broad geographic sample. This yielded a species- wide estimate of 35 (95% likelihood interval 31-40) S-alleles. We performed crosses to confirm the association with SI function of 10 of the putative S-RNase allele sequences. Results in all cases were consistent with the expectation that these sequences represent functional alleles under single-locus gametophytic SI. We used the allele sequences to conduct an analysis of selection, as measured by the excess of nonsynonymous changes per site, and found evidence for adaptive changes both within the traditionally defined hypervariable regions and downstream, near the 3'-end of the molecule.