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Satellite repeats in the functional centromere and pericentromeric heterochromatin of Medicago truncatula

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Abstract

Most eukaryotic centromeres contain long arrays of tandem repeats, with unit lengths of 150–300 bp. We searched for such repeats in the functional centromeres of the model legume Medicago truncatula (Medicago) accession Jemalong A17. To this end three repeats, MtR1, MtR2 and MtR3, were identified in 20 Mb of a low-pass, whole genome sequencing data set generated by a random shotgun approach. The nucleotide sequence composition, genomic organization and abundance of these repeats were characterized. Fluorescent in situ hybridization of these repeats on chromosomes at meiosis I showed that only the MtR3 repeat, encompassing stretches of 450 kb to more than 1.0 Mb, is located in the functional portion of all eight centromeres. MtR1 and MtR2 occupy distinct regions in pericentromeric heterochromatin. We also studied the presence and distribution of MtRs in Medicago accession R108-1, a genotype with a genome that is 20% smaller than that of Jemalong A17. We determined that while MtR3 is also centromeric on all pachytene bivalents in R108-1, MtR1 and MtR2 are not present in the R108 genome.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by grants from the FP6 EU project Grain Legumes (FOOD-CT-2004-506223) (to R.G. and T.B.) and CW (NWO) (to T.B.), from the US National Science Foundation (DBI-0110206, to D.R.C. and D.J.K.), and from the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation (to B.A.R.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Department of Plant Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Olga Kulikova, René Geurts, Monique Lamine & Ton Bisseling

  2. Department of Plant Pathology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA

    Dong-Jin Kim & Douglas R. Cook

  3. Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Department of Plant Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Jack Leunissen

  4. Laboratory of Genetics, Department of Plant Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Hans de Jong

  5. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019, USA

    Bruce A. Roe

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  1. Olga Kulikova
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  2. René Geurts
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  3. Monique Lamine
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  4. Dong-Jin Kim
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  5. Douglas R. Cook
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  6. Jack Leunissen
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  7. Hans de Jong
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  8. Bruce A. Roe
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  9. Ton Bisseling
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ton Bisseling.

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Communicated by P. Shaw

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Kulikova, O., Geurts, R., Lamine, M. et al. Satellite repeats in the functional centromere and pericentromeric heterochromatin of Medicago truncatula. Chromosoma 113, 276–283 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00412-004-0315-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00412-004-0315-3

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