The holocentric species Luzula elegans shows interplay between centromere and large‐scale genome organization |
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Authors: | Stefan Heckmann Jiri Macas Katrin Kumke Jörg Fuchs Veit Schubert Lu Ma Petr Novák Pavel Neumann Stefan Taudien Matthias Platzer Andreas Houben |
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Institution: | 1. Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), , 06466 Gatersleben, Germany;2. Biology Centre of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Institute of Plant Molecular Biology, , ?eské Budějovice, 37005 Czech Republic;3. Leibniz Institute for Age Research – Fritz Lipmann Institute, , 07745 Jena, Germany |
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Abstract: | In higher plants, the large‐scale structure of monocentric chromosomes consists of distinguishable eu‐ and heterochromatic regions, the proportions and organization of which depend on a species' genome size. To determine whether the same interplay is maintained for holocentric chromosomes, we investigated the distribution of repetitive sequences and epigenetic marks in the woodrush Luzula elegans (3.81 Gbp/1C). Sixty‐one per cent of the L. elegans genome is characterized by highly repetitive DNA, with over 30 distinct sequence families encoding an exceptionally high diversity of satellite repeats. Over 33% of the genome is composed of the Angela clade of Ty1/copia LTR retrotransposons, which are uniformly dispersed along the chromosomes, while the satellite repeats occur as bands whose distribution appears to be biased towards the chromosome termini. No satellite showed an almost chromosome‐wide distribution pattern as expected for a holocentric chromosome and no typical centromere‐associated LTR retrotransposons were found either. No distinguishable large‐scale patterns of eu‐ and heterochromatin‐typical epigenetic marks or early/late DNA replicating domains were found along mitotic chromosomes, although super‐high‐resolution light microscopy revealed distinguishable interspersed units of various chromatin types. Our data suggest a correlation between the centromere and overall genome organization in species with holocentric chromosomes. |
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Keywords: | holocentric genome organization holokinetic chromosome centromere histone marks repetitive DNA
Luzula elegans
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