Molecular Biology and Evolution, Vol 3, 29-43, Copyright © 1986 by Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution
ML Arnold, R Appels and DD Shaw
The restriction enzyme TaqI digests 0.2% of the genomic DNA from the
grasshopper Caledia captiva to a family of sequences 168 bp in length
(length of consensus sequence). The sequence variation of this "Taq family"
of repeat units was examined among four races from C. captiva to assay the
pattern of evolution within this highly repeated DNA. The Taq-family
repeats are located in C-banded heterochromatin on at least one member of
each homologous pair of chromosomes; the locations range from centromeric
to telomeric. Thirty-nine cloned repeats isolated from two population 1A
individuals along with 11 clones from seven populations taken from three of
the races demonstrated sequence variation at 72 positions. Pairwise
comparisons of the cloned repeats, both within an individual and between
different races, indicate that levels of intraspecific divergence, as
measured by reproductive incompatibility, do not correlate with sequence
divergence among the 168-bp repeats. A number of subsequences within the
repeat remain unchanged among all 50 clones; the longest of these is 18 bp.
That the same 18-bp subsequence is present in all clones examined is a
finding that departs significantly (P less than 0.01) from what would be
expected to occur at random. Two other cloned repeats, from a
reproductively isolated race of C. captiva, have sequences that show 56%
identity with this 18-bp conserved region. An analysis showed that the
frequency of occurrence of an RsaI recognition site within the 168- bp
repeat in the entire Taq family agreed with that found in the cloned
sequences. These data, along with a partial sequence for the entire Taq
family obtained by sequencing uncloned repeats, suggest that the consensus
sequence from the cloned copies is representative of this highly repeated
family and is not a biased sample resulting from the cloning procedure. The
18-bp conserved sequence is part of a 42-bp sequence that possesses dyad
symmetry typical of protein-binding sites. We speculate that this may be
significant in the evolution of the Taq family of sequences.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The heterochromatin of grasshoppers from the Caledia captiva species complex. I. Sequence evolution and conservation in a highly repeated DNA family
Department of Population Biology, Australian National University, Canberra.
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