Comparative analysis of tandem repeats from hundreds of species reveals unique insights into centromere evolution.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Centromeres are essential for chromosome segregation, yet their DNA sequences evolve rapidly. In most animals and plants that have been studied, centromeres contain megabase-scale arrays of tandem repeats. Despite their importance, very little is known about the degree to which centromere tandem repeats share common properties between different species across different phyla. We used bioinformatic methods to identify high-copy tandem repeats from 282 species using publicly available genomic sequence and our own data.

Results

Our methods are compatible with all current sequencing technologies. Long Pacific Biosciences sequence reads allowed us to find tandem repeat monomers up to 1,419 bp. We assumed that the most abundant tandem repeat is the centromere DNA, which

SUBMITTER: Melters DP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4053949 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature