The structure of an endogenous Drosophila centromere reveals the prevalence of tandemly repeated sequences able to form i-motifs.

ABSTRACT: Centromeres are the chromosomal loci at which spindle microtubules attach to mediate chromosome segregation during mitosis and meiosis. In most eukaryotes, centromeres are made up of highly repetitive DNA sequences (satellite DNA) interspersed with middle repetitive DNA sequences (transposable elements). Despite the efforts to establish complete genomic sequences of eukaryotic organisms, the so-called 'finished' genomes are not actually complete because the centromeres have not been assembled due to the intrinsic difficulties in constructing both physical maps and complete sequence assemblies of long stretches of tandemly repetitive DNA. Here we show the first molecular structure of an endogenous Drosophila centromere and the ability of the C-rich dodeca satellite strand to form dimeric i-

SUBMITTER: Garavis M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4542561 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature