title: Reassignment of Drosophila willistoni Genome Scaffolds to Chromosome II Arms.
abstract: Drosophila willistoni is a geographically widespread Neotropical species. The genome of strain Gd-H4-1 from Guadeloupe Island (Caribbean) was sequenced in 2007 as part of the 12 Drosophila Genomes Project. The assembled scaffolds were joined based on conserved linkage and assigned to polytene chromosomes based on a handful of genetic and physical markers. This paucity of markers was particularly striking in the metacentric chromosome II, comprised two similarly sized arms, IIL and IIR, traditionally considered homologous to Muller elements C and B, respectively. In this paper we present the cytological mapping of 22 new gene markers to increase the number of markers mapped by in situ hybridization and to test the assignment of scaffolds to the polytene chromosome II arms. For this purpose, we generated, by polymerase chain reaction amplification, one or two gene probes from each scaffold assigned to the chromosome II arms and mapped these probes to the Gd-H4-1 strain's polytene chromosomes by nonfluorescent in situ hybridization. Our findings show that chromosome arms IIL and IIR correspond to Muller elements B and C, respectively, directly contrasting the current homology assignments in D. willistoni and constituting a major reassignment of the scaffolds to chromosome II arms.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Genética, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil 15053 Departament de Genètica i de Microbiologia, Facultat de Biociències, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain 08193.
authors.forename: Carolina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Garcia
authors.affiliation: Departament de Genètica i de Microbiologia, Facultat de Biociències, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain 08193.
authors.forename: Alejandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Delprat
authors.affiliation: Departament de Genètica i de Microbiologia, Facultat de Biociències, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain 08193.
authors.forename: Alfredo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ruiz
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Genética, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil 15053 00004887@ufrgs.br.
authors.forename: Vera L S
authors.initials: VL
authors.lastname: Valente
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D059006:Chromosomes, Insect; D004330:Drosophila / Q000235:genetics*; D017344:Genes, Insect; D005819:Genetic Markers; D049750:Genome, Insect; D023281:Genomics; D017403:In Situ Hybridization; D059007:Polytene Chromosomes
chemical_list: D005819:Genetic Markers
keywords: Drosophila willistoni; Muller elements; in situ hybridization; physical markers; polytene chromosome II