title: Near the edge of a chromosome's "black hole".
abstract: The inability of current technology to determine contiguous sequence for highly repetitive regions means that centromeres fall within multi-megabase gaps, analogous to black holes from which no information escapes. However, high-resolution mapping of a human X-centromere border reveals a remarkable structure, including a gradient of alpha-satellite divergence up to the edge of the youngest and most homogeneous repeats.
authors.affiliation: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA 98109-1024, USA. steveh@fhcrc.org
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Henikoff
mesh_terms: D002503:Centromere; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D004276:DNA, Satellite / Q000235:genetics; D022041:Euchromatin / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D006570:Heterochromatin; D006801:Humans; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D014960:X Chromosome
chemical_list: D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D004276:DNA, Satellite; D022041:Euchromatin; D006570:Heterochromatin