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A conserved repetitive DNA element located in the centromeres of chromosomes in Medicago genus

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Abstract

In most eukaryotic species, centromeres harbor large arrays of tandem repeated satellite DNA sequences. In this study, we report on the genomic distribution of a centromere satellite repeat “MtR3” in Medicago genus and three distantly related genera. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) results showed MtR3 repeats were detected in the centromere regions in M. truncatula, M. minima, M. edgeworthii, M. ruthenica, M. caerulea, M. sativa, and M. falcata (4×), but no signals were discovered in M. lupulina, M. polymorpha, and M. falcata (2×), Melilotus officinalis, Crotalaria medicaginea, and Trifolium repens. However, sequence analysis showed this MtR3 DNA had genomic distribution in all species and was highly conserved across the entire Medicago genus and three other genera. The conservation and widespread presence suggested MtR3 repeats may play important roles in centromeric function.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Professor Tao Wang and Jiangli Dong (State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology, College of Biological Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China) for providing partial Medicago materials. This work was supported by the Science and Technology Service Network Initiative of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KFJ-SW-STS-177) and Natural Science Foundation of Qinghai Province (No. 2015-ZJ-903).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Adaptation and Evolution of Plateau Biota, Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining, 810008, China

    Feng Yu, Quanwen Dou, Ruijuan Liu & Haiqing Wang

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Feng Yu & Ruijuan Liu

  3. Key Laboratory of Crop Molecular Breeding, Qinghai Province, Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining, 810008, China

    Quanwen Dou

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  1. Feng Yu
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Correspondence to Haiqing Wang.

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Feng Yu, Quanwen Dou, Ruijuan Liu, Haiqing Wang declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Suppl. Fig. S1 DNA sequences of MtR3 family containing dimer, trimer, tetramer or pentamer (DOCX 21 KB)

13258_2017_556_MOESM2_ESM.tif

Suppl. Fig. S2 DNA sequence alignment of all MtR3 repeat units from 10 Medicago species and three related species. Blue shadow boxes indicate sequence identity above 50% homology level. Pink shadow boxes indicate sequence identity above 75% homology level. Black shadow boxes indicate sequence identity at 100% homology level. Consensus sequence is presented in the last row (TIF 2369 KB)

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Yu, F., Dou, Q., Liu, R. et al. A conserved repetitive DNA element located in the centromeres of chromosomes in Medicago genus. Genes Genom 39, 903–911 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13258-017-0556-1

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