Evolution of long centromeres in fire ants.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Centromeres are essential for accurate chromosome segregation, yet sequence conservation is low even among closely related species. Centromere drive predicts rapid turnover because some centromeric sequences may compete better than others during female meiosis. In addition to sequence composition, longer centromeres may have a transmission advantage.

Results

We report the first observations of extremely long centromeres, covering on average 34 % of the chromosomes, in the red imported fire ant Solenopsis invicta. By comparison, cytological examination of Solenopsis geminata revealed typical small centromeric constrictions. Bioinformatics and molecular analyses identified CenSol, the major centromeric satellite DNA repeat. We found that CenSol sequences are very si

SUBMITTER: Huang YC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5024525 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature