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Comparative cytogenetics of cichlid fishes through genomic in-situ hybridization (GISH) with emphasis on Oreochromis niloticus

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Abstract

Cichlidae is the most species-rich freshwater family of Perciformes and has attracted the attention of aquarium hobbyists, aquaculturists, and sport fisherman. Oreochromis niloticus is very important in aquaculture today and is currently used in varied areas of study as an ‘experimental model’. Oreochromis niloticus has been characterized using classical and molecular cytogenetic techniques, with special attention paid to heterochromatin structure and the identification of sex chromosomes. In this study, we compare the genome of O. niloticus with that of other cichlids from Africa and South America using genomic in-situ hybridization (GISH). Our results show that at least some elements comprising the pericentromeric heterochromatin of Nile tilapia are species-specific and that the sequence of the majority of the long arm of the largest chromosome pair is conserved within the tilapiine group, which is composed of the genera Tilapia, Oreochromis, and Sarotherodon. It is suggested that the extensive regions of repeated DNA in the largest chromosome pair of O. niloticus resulted from chromosome rearrangement or accumulation caused by recombination suppression during the evolutionary history of the tilapiines.

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Abbreviations

2n:

diploid number

BAC:

bacterial artificial chromosome

C buffer:

coupling buffer

Cot-1 DNA:

DNA enriched for highly and moderately repetitive DNA sequences

FISH:

fluorescence in-situ hybridization

FITC:

fluorescein isothiocyanate

GISH:

genomic in-situ hybridization

LINE:

long interspersed nuclear elements

m/sm:

meta-submetacentric chromosome

NCBI:

National Center for Biotechnology Information

SINE:

short interspersed nuclear elements

SSC:

standard saline citrate

st/a:

subtelo-acrocentric chromosomes

st:

subtelocentric chromosomes

Tc1:

transposon of Caenorhabditis elegans

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo), CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico), and CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior) for financial support, and to D Penman for the tissue samples provided.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratório de Genômica Integrativa, Departamento de Morfologia, Instituto de Biociências, UNESP – Universidade Estadual Paulista, Botucatu, SP, Brazil

    Guilherme Targino Valente & Cesar Martins

  2. Laboratório de Genética de Peixes, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Coordenação de Pesquisas em Biologia Aquática, Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil

    Carlos Henrique Schneider, Maria Claudia Gross & Eliana Feldberg

  3. Departamento de Morfologia, UNESP – Universidade Estadual Paulista, Instituto de Biociências, CEP 18618-000, Botucatu, São Paulo, Brazil

    Cesar Martins

Authors
  1. Guilherme Targino Valente
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  2. Carlos Henrique Schneider
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  3. Maria Claudia Gross
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  4. Eliana Feldberg
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  5. Cesar Martins
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cesar Martins.

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Responsible Editor: Nobuo Takagi

Electronic supplementary material

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Supplement S1

Cichlidae species and gene sequences obtained from NCBI (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) used for genetic distance analyses. (PDF 39 kb)

Supplement S2

Correlation between the genetic distance among cichlid species and the percent of hybridization in the chromosomes of O. niloticus. R2 indicates the coefficient of determination. (PDF 252 kb)

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Targino Valente, G., Henrique Schneider, C., Claudia Gross, M. et al. Comparative cytogenetics of cichlid fishes through genomic in-situ hybridization (GISH) with emphasis on Oreochromis niloticus . Chromosome Res 17, 791–799 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10577-009-9067-5

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