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PMID: 9428523 Published · ppublish English Journal Article

Molecular structure of a functional Drosophila centromere.

Cell ·Vol. 91 ·No. 7 ·1997-12-26 ·Pages 1007-19

Sun X, Wahlstrom J, Karpen G

Abstract

Centromeres play a critical role in chromosome inheritance but are among the most difficult genomic components to analyze in multicellular eukaryotes. Here, we present a highly detailed molecular structure of a functional centromere in a multicellular organism. The centromere of the Drosophila minichromosome Dp1187 is contained within a 420 kb region of centric heterochromatin. We have used a new approach to characterize the detailed structure of this centromere and found that it is primarily composed of satellites and single, complete transposable elements. In the rest of the Drosophila genome, these satellites and transposable elements are neither unique to the centromeres nor present at all centromeres. We discuss the impact of these results on our understanding of heterochromatin structure and on the determinants of centromere identity and function.

MeSH Terms
Animals Base Sequence Centromere/chemistry,physiology DNA DNA Transposable Elements DNA, Satellite/chemistry,isolation & purification Drosophila/genetics Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field Heterochromatin/chemistry,isolation & purification,physiology In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence Molecular Sequence Data Restriction Mapping
Chemicals
DNA Transposable Elements DNA, Satellite Heterochromatin DNA
Authors & Affiliations
3 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Sun X
Molecular Biology and Virology Laboratory, The Salk Institute, La Jolla, California 92037, USA.
Wahlstrom J
Karpen G
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Article Info
Journal
Cell
Abbr.
Cell
ISSN
0092-8674
DOI
10.1016/s0092-8674(00)80491-2
Published
1997-12-26
Pages
1007-19
Language
English
Region
United States
NLM ID
0413066
PMCID
PMC3209480
Subset
IM
Databases
GENBANK
AF036950
External Links
PubMed source DOI: 10.1016/s0092-8674(00)80491-2 PMC Full Text View journal details
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