title: On the origin of Robertsonian fusions in nature: evidence of telomere shortening in wild house mice.
abstract: The role of telomere shortening to explain the occurrence of Robertsonian (Rb) fusions, as well as the importance of the average telomere length vs. the proportion of short telomeres, especially in nature populations, is largely unexplored. In this study, we have analysed telomere shortening in nine wild house mice from the Barcelona Rb system with diploid numbers ranging from 29 to 40 chromosomes. We also included two standard (2n=40) laboratory mice for comparison. Our data showed that the average telomere length (considering all chromosomal arms) is influenced by both the diploid number and the origin of the mice (wild vs. laboratory). In detail, we detected that wild mice from the Rb Barcelona system (fused and standard) present shorter telomeres than standard laboratory mice. However, only wild mice with Rb fusions showed a high proportion of short telomeres (only in p-arms), thus revealing the importance of telomere shortening in the origin of the Rb fusions in the Barcelona system. Overall, our study confirms that the number of critically short telomeres, and not a simple reduction in the average telomere length, is more likely to lead to the origin of Rb fusions in the Barcelona system and ultimately in nature.
authors.affiliation: Genome Integrity and Instability Group, Institut de Biotecnologia i Biomedicina (IBB), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Sánchez-Guillén
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Capilla
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Reig-Viader
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Martínez-Plana
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pardo-Camacho
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Andrés-Nieto
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ventura
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ruiz-Herrera
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002875:Chromosomes; D004171:Diploidy; D017404:In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice / Q000235:genetics*; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D059506:Telomere Shortening
keywords: Robertsonian fusions; chromosomal evolution; telomere shortening; western house mouse