title: Analyses of synteny between Arabidopsis thaliana and species in the Asteraceae reveal a complex network of small syntenic segments and major chromosomal rearrangements.
abstract: Comparative genomic studies among highly divergent species have been problematic because reduced gene similarities make orthologous gene pairs difficult to identify and because colinearity is expected to be low with greater time since divergence from the last common ancestor. Nevertheless, synteny between divergent taxa in several lineages has been detected over short chromosomal segments. We have examined the level of synteny between the model species Arabidopsis thaliana and species in the Compositae, one of the largest and most diverse plant families. While macrosyntenic patterns covering large segments of the chromosomes are not evident, significant levels of local synteny are detected at a fine scale covering segments of 1-Mb regions of A. thaliana and regions of <5 cM in lettuce and sunflower. These syntenic patches are often not colinear, however, and form a network of regions that have likely evolved by duplications followed by differential gene loss.
authors.affiliation: Biology Department, University of Massachusetts, Boston 02125, USA.
authors.forename: Lee
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Timms
authors.forename: Rosmery
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jimenez
authors.forename: Mike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chase
authors.forename: Dean
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lavelle
authors.forename: Leah
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: McHale
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kozik
authors.forename: Zhao
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Heesacker
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Knapp
authors.forename: Loren
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Rieseberg
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Michelmore
authors.forename: Rick
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kesseli
mesh_terms: D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics*; D002874:Chromosome Mapping / Q000379:methods; D032461:Chromosomes, Plant / Q000235:genetics*; D006368:Helianthus / Q000235:genetics*; D018545:Lactuca / Q000235:genetics*