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Letter

The evolutionary dynamics of -satellite

¹ Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA ² Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA ³ Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA

-Satellite is a family of tandemly repeated sequences found at all normal human centromeres. In addition to its significance for understanding centromere function, -satellite is also a model for concerted evolution, as -satellite repeats are more similar within a species than between species. There are two types of -satellite in the human genome; while both are made up of 171-bp monomers, they can be distinguished by whether monomers are arranged in extremely homogeneous higher-order, multimeric repeat units or exist as more divergent monomeric -satellite that lacks any multimeric periodicity. In this study, as a model to examine the genomic and evolutionary relationships between these two types, we have focused on the chromosome 17 centromeric region that has reached both higher-order and monomeric -satellite in the human genome assembly. Monomeric and higher-order -satellites on chromosome 17 are phylogenetically distinct, consistent with a model in which higher-order evolved independently of monomeric -satellite. Comparative analysis between human chromosome 17 and the orthologous chimpanzee chromosome indicates that monomeric -satellite is evolving at approximately the same rate as the adjacent non--satellite DNA. However, higher-order -satellite is less conserved, suggesting different evolutionary rates for the two types of -satellite.

⁴ Present address: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA 98109, USA.

⁵ Corresponding author.
E-mail hunt.willard{at}duke.edu; fax (919) 668-0795.

[Supplemental material is available online at www.genome.org.]

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