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MBE Advance Access originally published online on September 14, 2005
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2006 23(1):4-6; doi:10.1093/molbev/msj017
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Letter

Complex Germline Architecture: Two Genes Intertwined on Two Loci

Shiuhyang Kuo, Wei-Jen Chang and Laura F. Landweber

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University

E-mail: lfl{at}princeton.edu.

The germline micronuclear genome of some ciliated protists can be scrambled, with coding segments disordered relative to the expressed macronuclear genome. Here, we report a surprisingly complex pair of genes that assemble from interwoven segments on two germline loci in the ciliate Uroleptus. This baroque organization requires two scrambled genes to be disentangled from each other from two clusters in the genome, one containing segments 1-2-4-5-6-8-11-13-15-16 and the other 7-9-3-10-12-14, with pieces 1–5 comprising the first gene and 6–16 the second gene. Both genes remain linked in the somatic genome on a 1.5-kb "nanochromosome." This study is the first to reveal that two genes can become scrambled during evolution with their coding segments intertwined. These twin scrambled genes underscore the beauty and exceptions of protist genome architecture, pointing to the critical need for evolutionary biologists to survey protist genomes broadly.

Key Words: micronucleus • scrambled gene • Uroleptus • hypotrich • spirotrich • ciliate


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Home page
 Mol Biol EvolHome page
L. C. Wong and L. F. Landweber
Evolution of Programmed DNA Rearrangements in a Scrambled Gene
Mol. Biol. Evol., April 1, 2006; 23(4): 756 - 763.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


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