The large intergenic spacer (IGS) of potato rDNA was sequenced and compared to the IGS sequence of tomato. Both spacers exhibit similar length and architecture. Absence of repeated elements down-stream of the putative transcription initiation site (TIS) in potato is compensated by the larger number of subrepeats upstream of the TIS. Especially high level of similarity (86% and 86.5%, respectively) is found in the AT-rich domain containing the TIS and the region approx. 800 bp upstream of the 18S rRNA gene.