Comparative mapping of Arabidopsis thaliana and Brassica oleracea chromosomes reveals islands of conserved organization.

The chromosomes of Arabidopsis thaliana and Brassica oleracea have been extensively rearranged since the divergence of these species; however, conserved regions are evident. Eleven regions of conserved organization were detected, ranging from 3.7 to 49.6 cM in A. thaliana, spanning 158.2 cM (24.6%) of the A. thaliana genome, and 245 cM (29.9%) of the B. oleracea genome. At least 17 translocations and 9 inversions distinguish the genomes of A. thaliana and B. oleracea. In one case B. oleracea homoeologs show a common marker order, which is distinguished from the A. thaliana order by a rearrangement, indicating that the lineages of A. thaliana and B. oleracea diverged prior to chromosomal duplication in the Brassica lineage (for at least this chromosome). Some chromosomal segments in B. oleracea appear to be triplicated, indicating the need for reevaluation of a classical model for Brassica chromosome evolution by duplication. The distribution of duplicated loci mapped for about 13% of the DNA probes studied in A. thaliana suggests that ancient duplications may also have occurred in Arabidopsis. The degree of chromosomal divergence between A. thaliana and B. oleracea appears greater than that found in other confamilial species for which comparative maps are available.