The expansion of heterochromatin blocks in rye reflects the co-amplification of tandem repeats and adjacent transposable elements.

ABSTRACT:

Background

A prominent and distinctive feature of the rye (Secale cereale) chromosomes is the presence of massive blocks of subtelomeric heterochromatin, the size of which is correlated with the copy number of tandem arrays. The rapidity with which these regions have formed over the period of speciation remains unexplained.

Results

Using a BAC library created from the short arm telosome of rye chromosome 1R we uncovered numerous arrays of the pSc200 and pSc250 tandem repeat families which are concentrated in subtelomeric heterochromatin and identified the adjacent DNA sequences. The arrays show significant heterogeneity in monomer organization. 454 reads were used to gain a representation of the expansion of these tandem repeats across the whole rye genome. The presence of m

SUBMITTER: Evtushenko EV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4857426 | biostudies-literature | 2016 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature