Dynamics of mammalian chromosome evolution inferred from multispecies comparative maps

The genome organizations of eight phylogenetically distinct species from five mammalian orders were compared in order to address fundamental questions relating to mammalian chromosomal evolution. Rates of chromosome evolution within mammalian orders were found to increase since the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. Nearly 20% of chromosome breakpoint regions were reused during mammalian evolution; these reuse sites are also enriched for centromeres. Analysis of gene content in and around evolutionary breakpoint regions revealed increased gene density relative to the genome-wide average. We found that segmental duplications populate the majority of primate-specific breakpoints and often flank inverted chromosome segments, implicating their role in chromosomal rearrangement.     

Evolution Analysis About Soybean MIR166 Family

MicroRNA(miRNA) is a class of important regulating non-coding small molecular RNA. The gma-MIR166 gene family consists of 21 members and their expression patterns diversify widely. It is important to analyze the evolution of gma-MIR166 gene family in order to understand the evolutionary mechanisms of miRNAs in soybean. In this study, we implemented soybean wide genome block analysis, the molecular phylogeny of gma-MIR166 and block analysis of gma-MIR166 family. The results showed that both chromosome big segmental duplications and tandem duplications were main reasons contributed to the expanding of gmaMIR166 gene family. These findings suggested that gma-MIR166 gene family might originate from one or two ancient miRNA genes. The results of research provided a support for evolutionary study of miRNAs in soybean and related species in Fabaceae.     

Structural dynamics of eukaryotic chromosome evolution

Large-scale genome sequencing is providing a comprehensive view of the complex evolutionary forces that have shaped the structure of eukaryotic chromosomes. Comparative sequence analyses reveal patterns of apparently random rearrangement interspersed with regions of extraordinarily rapid, localized genome evolution. Numerous subtle rearrangements near centromeres, telomeres, duplications, and interspersed repeats suggest hotspots for eukaryotic chromosome evolution. This localized chromosomal instability may play a role in rapidly evolving lineage-specific gene families and in fostering large-scale changes in gene order. Computational algorithms that take into account these dynamic forces along with traditional models of chromosomal rearrangement show promise for reconstructing the natural history of eukaryotic chromosomes.     

The effect of histone gene deletions on chromatin structure in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

As a way of studying nucleosome assembly and maintenance in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, mutants bearing deletions or duplications of the genes encoding histones H2A and H2B were analyzed. Previous genetic analysis had shown that only one of these mutants exhibited dramatic and pleiotropic phenotypes. This mutant was also the only one that contained disrupted chromatin, suggesting that the original phenotypes were attributable to alterations in chromosome structure. The chromatin disruption in the mutant, however, did not extend over the entire genome, but rather was localized to specific regions. Thus, while the arrangement of nucleosomes over the HIS4 and GAL1 genes, the telomeres, and the long terminal repeats (delta sequences) of Ty retrotransposons appeared essentially normal, nucleosomes over the CYH2 and UBI4 genes and the centromere of chromosome III were dramatically disrupted. The observation that the mutant exhibited localized chromatin disruptions implies that the assembly or maintenance of nucleosomes differs over different parts of the yeast genome.     

家猪(Sus scrofa domestica L.)染色体G-带核型的研究

本文对经外周血淋巴细胞培养的猪染色体标本,运用胰酶 G-带技术,进行了核型分析,描述了早、中、晚不同时期中期染色体的 G-带型。将家猪中期染色体 G-带型划分成64个区。共488条带纹,比较了染色体 X 和9的带型差别。     

黄瓜-酸黄瓜染色体片段导入系群体的构建及果实相关数量性状基因的定位

【目的】以栽培黄瓜（Cucumis sativus L. , 2n = 14)‘北京截头’为受体亲本,以野生酸黄瓜( C. hystrix Chakr, 2n = 24）为供体亲本,采用SSR标记辅助选择法构建黄瓜-酸黄瓜染色体片段导入系群体。初步定位控制黄瓜果实外形的数量性状基因。【方法】首先通过种间杂交-回交-自交获得大量的染色体片段导入系株系。然后选择均匀分布在黄瓜染色体组上的298对SSR标记对亲本进行多态性检测,使用检测出的亲本间差异引物对染色体片段导入系株系进行检测,筛选含有野生酸黄瓜染色体片段的植株。对该群体果实外形进行初步调查,利用t测验与轮回亲本比较,鉴定QTL。【结果】本研究构建了由50个株系组成的染色体片段导入系群体。在该群体中共检测到149个染色体导入片段,包含61个不同的导入片段,不同导入片段的总长度为259.95 cM,基因组覆盖率为45.37%。导入片段的长度在1.65-15.4 cM,平均长度为5.41 cM,分布于黄瓜的7条染色体上。利用该导入系群体初步定位了控制黄瓜果型的13个QTL。【结论】构建了一套以栽培黄瓜为背景,野生酸黄瓜为前景的染色体片段导入系群体,并利用该导入系初步定位了控制黄瓜果型的QTL,为开发利用野生酸黄瓜的优良基因提供了新的种质资源,也为今后定位黄瓜的数量性状遗传位点奠定了材料基础。     

Bacterial chromosome dynamics

Bacterial chromosomes are highly compacted structures and share many properties with their eukaryote counterparts, despite not being organized into chromatin or being contained within a cell nucleus. Proteins conserved across all branches of life act in chromosome organization, and common mechanisms maintain genome integrity and ensure faithful replication. The principles that underlie chromosome segregation in bacteria and eukaryotes share similarities, although bacteria segregate DNA as it replicates and lack a eukaryote-like mitotic apparatus for segregating chromosomes. This may be because the distances that newly replicated bacterial chromosomes move apart before cell division are small as compared to those in eukaryotes. Bacteria specify positional information, which determines where cell division will occur and which places the replication machinery and chromosomal loci at defined locations that change during cell cycle progression.     

Recent segmental duplications in the human genome

Primate-specific segmental duplications are considered important in human disease and evolution. The inability to distinguish between allelic and duplication sequence overlap has hampered their characterization as well as assembly and annotation of our genome. We developed a method whereby each public sequence is analyzed at the clone level for overrepresentation within a whole-genome shotgun sequence. This test has the ability to detect duplications larger than 15 kilobases irrespective of copy number, location, or high sequence similarity. We mapped 169 large regions flanked by highly similar duplications. Twenty-four of these hot spots of genomic instability have been associated with genetic disease. Our analysis indicates a highly nonrandom chromosomal and genic distribution of recent segmental duplications, with a likely role in expanding protein diversity.     

Retroviral DNA integration directed by HIV integration protein in vitro

Efficient retroviral growth requires integration of a DNA copy of the viral RNA genome into a chromosome of the host. As a first step in analyzing the mechanism of integration of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) DNA, a cell-free system was established that models the integration reaction. The in vitro system depends on the HIV integration (IN) protein, which was partially purified from insect cells engineered to express IN protein in large quantities. Integration was detected in a biological assay that scores the insertion of a linear DNA containing HIV terminal sequences into a lambda DNA target. Some integration products generated in this assay contained five-base pair duplications of the target DNA at the recombination junctions, a characteristic of HIV integration in vivo; the remaining products contained aberrant junctional sequences that may have been produced in a variation of the normal reaction. These results indicate that HIV IN protein is the only viral protein required to insert model HIV DNA sequences into a target DNA in vitro.     

Isolation of single-copy human genes from a library of yeast artificial chromosome clones

A recently developed cloning system based on the propagation of large DNA molecules as linear, artificial chromosomes in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae provides a potential method of cloning the entire human genome in segments of several hundred kilobase pairs. Most application of this system will require the ability to recover specific sequences from libraries of yeast artificial chromosome clones and to propagate these sequences in yeast without alterations. Two single-copy genes have now been cloned from a library of yeast artificial chromosome clones that was prepared from total human DNA. Multiple, independent isolates were obtained of the genes encoding factor IX and plasminogen activator inhibitor type 2. The clones, which ranged in size from 60 to 650 kilobases, were stable on prolonged propagation in yeast and appear to contain faithful replicas of human DNA.     

Replication dynamics of the yeast genome

Oligonucleotide microarrays were used to map the detailed topography of chromosome replication in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The times of replication of thousands of sites across the genome were determined by hybridizing replicated and unreplicated DNAs, isolated at different times in S phase, to the microarrays. Origin activations take place continuously throughout S phase but with most firings near mid-S phase. Rates of replication fork movement vary greatly from region to region in the genome. The two ends of each of the 16 chromosomes are highly correlated in their times of replication. This microarray approach is readily applicable to other organisms, including humans.     

禾谷类作物的比较基因组研究

 水稻是基因组最小的禾谷类作物,饱和遗传连锁图谱的构建,以及在此基础上开展的标记辅助选择和抗病基因克隆,表明水稻基因组研究已经领先于其他禾谷类作物。比较基因组研究表明：小麦、玉米、高粱、谷子和甘蔗的基因组均可由水稻染色体区段重新排列而成，这些区段上DNA标记的排列顺序在各个种之间保留。各种作物基因组大小的差异可能由于各个区段内基因间重复顺序扩增的程度不同所致。根据这些区段在各种作物染色体的排列顺序，有人提出根据水稻染色体区段排列单个原始禾谷类染色体的设想，为深入研究禾谷类作物的进化遗传提出了全新的思路。禾谷类作物基因组之间的共线性有利于在小基因组内克隆大基因组作物的同源基因，使生物技术在作物育种中发挥更大的作用。     

S phase of the cell cycle

In each cell cycle the complex structure of the chromosome must be replicated accurately. In the last few years there have been major advances in understanding eukaryotic chromosome replication. Patterns of replication origins have been mapped accurately in yeast chromosomes. Cellular replication proteins have been identified by fractionating cell extracts that replicate viral DNA templates in vitro. Cell-free systems that initiate eukaryotic DNA replication in vitro have demonstrated the importance of complex nuclear architecture in the control of DNA replication. Although the events of S phase were relatively neglected for many years, knowledge of DNA replication is now advancing rapidly in step with other phases of the cell cycle.     

植物染色体重排在作物遗传改良中的应用研究进展

染色体重排是一种可能导致DNA片段丢失、重复、易位和倒位的机制,从而改变基因组结构,为创造新的变异性状提供可能。植物染色体重排事件的准确鉴定有助于更深入地理解植物基因组的结构、功能及它们在植物演化和作物育种中的作用。该文深入探讨了植物染色体重排的基本概念,介绍了植物染色体重排的自然发生和人工诱导的技术方法,阐述了植物染色体重排的细胞生物学、分子遗传学和高通量测序鉴定方法。同时,系统总结了植物染色体重排技术在作物遗传育种中的应用,结合具体实践,着重强调了染色体重排技术在提高农作物的遗传多样性、改良农作物的重要性状、增强农作物的环境适应性等方面极具优越性。然而,目前染色体重排的发生概率较低,技术上仍存在挑战,需要更多精准的工具和策略来实现染色体片段的精准定位和重排。通过全面了解染色体重排及其相关技术,研究人员和育种家可以更好地利用植物基因组,为全球粮食安全和环境可持续发展提供创新解决方案。相关研究不仅为深入认识植物基因组提供新途径,也为未来创新作物育种奠定坚实基础。通过挖掘植物基因组的多样性和可塑性,染色体重排技术有望为培育高产、优质、多抗的农作物新品种提供更多可能性,对解决全球日益严峻的...     

A comparison of whole-genome shotgun-derived mouse chromosome 16 and the human genome

The high degree of similarity between the mouse and human genomes is demonstrated through analysis of the sequence of mouse chromosome 16 (Mmu 16), which was obtained as part of a whole-genome shotgun assembly of the mouse genome. The mouse genome is about 10% smaller than the human genome, owing to a lower repetitive DNA content. Comparison of the structure and protein-coding potential of Mmu 16 with that of the homologous segments of the human genome identifies regions of conserved synteny with human chromosomes (Hsa) 3, 8, 12, 16, 21, and 22. Gene content and order are highly conserved between Mmu 16 and the syntenic blocks of the human genome. Of the 731 predicted genes on Mmu 16, 509 align with orthologs on the corresponding portions of the human genome, 44 are likely paralogous to these genes, and 164 genes have homologs elsewhere in the human genome; there are 14 genes for which we could find no human counterpart.     

ATR homolog Mec1 promotes fork progression,thus averting breaks in replication slow zones

Budding yeast Mec1, homolog of mammalian ATR, is an essential protein that mediates S-phase checkpoint responses and meiotic recombination. Elimination of Mec1 function leads to genomewide fork stalling followed by chromosome breakage. Breaks do not result from stochastic collapse of stalled forks or other incidental lesions; instead, they occur in specific regions of the genome during a G2 chromosomal transition. Break regions are found to be genetically encoded replication slow zones (RSZs), a newly discovered yeast chromosomal determinant. Thus, Mec1 has important functions in normal S phase and the genome instability of mec1 (and, analogously, ATR-/-) mutants stems from defects in these basic roles.     

Natural selection shapes genome-wide patterns of copy-number polymorphism in Drosophila melanogaster

The role that natural selection plays in governing the locations and early evolution of copy-number mutations remains largely unexplored. We used high-density full-genome tiling arrays to create a fine-scale genomic map of copy-number polymorphisms (CNPs) in Drosophila melanogaster. We inferred a total of 2658 independent CNPs, 56% of which overlap genes. These include CNPs that are likely to be under positive selection, most notably high-frequency duplications encompassing toxin-response genes. The locations and frequencies of CNPs are strongly shaped by purifying selection, with deletions under stronger purifying selection than duplications. Among duplications, those overlapping exons or introns, as well as those falling on the X chromosome, seem to be subject to stronger purifying selection.     

The mosaic genome of warm-blooded vertebrates

Most of the nuclear genome of warm-blooded vertebrates is a mosaic of very long (much greater than 200 kilobases) DNA segments, the isochores; these isochores are fairly homogeneous in base composition and belong to a small number of major classes distinguished by differences in guanine-cytosine (GC) content. The families of DNA molecules derived from such classes can be separated and used to study the genome distribution of any sequence which can be probed. This approach has revealed (i) that the distribution of genes, integrated viral sequences, and interspersed repeats is highly nonuniform in the genome, and (ii) that the base composition and ratio of CpG to GpC in both coding and noncoding sequences, as well as codon usage, mainly depend on the GC content of the isochores harboring the sequences. The compositional compartmentalization of the genome of warm-blooded vertebrates is discussed with respect to its evolutionary origin, its causes, and its effects on chromosome structure and function.