title: Regions of unusually high flexibility occur frequently in human genomic DNA.
abstract: Remarkable progress has been made in genome science during the past decade, but understanding of genomes of eukaryotes is far from complete. We have created DNA flexibility maps of the human, mouse, fruit fly, and nematode chromosomes. The maps revealed that all of these chromosomes have markedly flexible DNA regions (We named them SPIKEs). SPIKEs occur more frequently in the human chromosomes than in the mouse, fruit fly, and nematode chromosomes. Markedly rigid DNA regions (rSPIKEs) are also present in these chromosomes. The ratio of the number of SPIKEs to the total number of SPIKEs and rSPIKEs correlated positively with evolutionary stage among the organisms. Repetitive DNA sequences with flexible and rigid properties contribute to the formation of SPIKEs and rSPIKEs respectively. However, non-repetitive flexible and rigid sequences appear to play a major role in SPIKE and rSPIKE formation respectively. They might be involved in the genome-folding mechanism of eukaryotes.
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Hajime
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kimura
authors.forename: Dai
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kageyama
authors.forename: Mika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Furuya
authors.forename: Shigeru
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sugiyama
authors.forename: Noboru
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Murata
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ohyama
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000235:genetics; D002877:Chromosomes, Human / Q000235:genetics; D019295:Computational Biology; D004247:DNA / Q000235:genetics*; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D015894:Genome, Human / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D055585:Physical Phenomena
chemical_list: D004247:DNA