Menzel G, Heitkam T, Seibt KM, Nouroz F, Müller-Stoerme M, Heslop-Harrison JS, Schmidt T. 2014. The diversification and activity of hAT transposons in Musa genomes. Chromosome Research 22: 559–571. DOI 10.1007/s10577-014-9445-5 and Pubmed link ID: 25377178 And author print hATs in Musa _2014_CR_MenzelEtAlAuthorVersion2014. Sequencing of plant genomes often identified the hAT superfamily as largest group of DNA…
Tag: genomics
Needs for understanding water and food security
“The earth’s land surface receives about 110,000 km3 of rainfall annually. More than half of this water is evapotranspired (transmitted from soils and through plants to the air); about 20,000 km3 falls on land that is cultivated in some form; and about 40,000 km3 becomes available in dams, lakes, rivers, streams and aquifers for human…
Evidence of convergent evolution in humans and macaques supports an adaptive role for copy number variation of the β-defensin-2 gene
Ottolini B, Hornsby MJ, Abujaber R, Macarthur JA, Badge RM, Schwarzacher T, Albertson DG, Bevins CL, Solnick JV, Hollox EJ. 2014. Evidence of convergent evolution in humans and macaques supports an adaptive role for copy number variation of the β-defensin-2 gene. Genome Biology and Evolution 6(11): 3025-3038. DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evu236 β-defensins are a family of important peptides of…
Chromosomal evolution in Brachiaria forage grasses with Fabiola Carvalho Santos
Fabiola Santos from University of Londrina, Brazil, is working on the Chromosomal evolution and the organization of repetitive DNA sequences in diploid and polyploid Brachiaria forage grasses in the molecular cytogenetics group in Leicester. Brachiaria is most important cultivated forage grass genus in Brazil (with billion-dollar production), and the genus includes diploid and polyploid species with similar…
An Overview of Peanut Genome Structure
308. DJ Bertioli, ACG Araujo, S Nielen, P Heslop-Harrison, PM Guimarães, T Schwarzacher, S Isobe, K Shirasawa, Leal-Bertioli SCM. 2014. An overview of peanut genome structure. Chapter 6 in Genetics, Genomics and Breeding of Peanuts. Eds Nalini Mallikarjuna, Rajeev K. Varshney. Peanut genome structure manuscript Author Version pp. 114-138. CRC Press, Florida. http://www.crcnetbase.com/doi/abs/10.1201/b16872-7 ABSTRACT Cultivated peanut (Arachis hypogaea…
Animal Cytogenetics, Gene Mapping and Chromosome Research – The 21st Colloquium Ischia, Naples, Italy
Cytogenetics of animals is moving forward rapidly with the integration of sequencing and robust phylogenies with methods of chromosome analysis. The 21st International Colloquium on Animal Cytogenetics and Gene Mapping held June 2014 covered a range of topics in comparative, molecular, veterinary and environmental cytogenetics, as well as a session on cytogenetics of non-mammalian vertebrates and…
The origin of an old, resource-efficient crop, Broomcorn millet or Panicum miliaceum
307. Hunt HV, Badakshi F, Romanova O, Howe CJ, Jones M, Heslop-Harrison JS. 2014. Reticulate evolution in Panicum (Poaceae): the origin of tetraploid broomcorn millet, P. miliaceum. Journal of Experimental Botany 65 (12), 3165-3175. DOI:10.1093/jxb/eru161 . (Link to local copy J. Exp. Bot.-2014-Hunt-3165-75) Panicum miliaceum (broomcorn millet) is a tetraploid cereal which was among the first domesticated crops, but is now a minor…
In situ hybridization: a course on FISH and ChIp
In situ hybridization – a course on FISH and ChIp In situ hybridization, now largely with fluorescent detection so ‘fluorescent in situ hybridization’ or FISH, is a key method for localizing DNA sequences along chromosomes and occassionally within interphase nuclei. RNA in situ hybridization (not discussed here) is used for locating gene transcripts within nuclei….
Repetitive DNA in tetraploid peanut and its evolution from diploid Arachis
302. Bertioli DJ, Vidigal B, Nielen S, Ratnaparkhe MB, Lee T-JH, Leal-Bertioli SCM, Kim C, Guimaraes PM, Seijo G, Schwarzacher T, Paterson AH, Heslop-Harrison P, Araujo ACG. 2013. The repetitive component of the A genome of peanut (Arachis hypogaea) and its role in remodelling intergenic sequence space since its evolutionary divergence from the B genome. Annals…
Repetitive DNA in the edible button mushroom
I have a mental picture of the structure of a typical plant genome and typical animal genome, with their transposons (DNA and RNA), tandemly-repeated satellite sequences, minisatellites, microsatellites and other repeats. From this paper, I have a view of repeats in the second most important edible fungus (after yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae), the button mushroom Agaricus bisporus. Its genome, with n=13 chromosomes,…
Superdomestication, feed-forward breeding and climate proofing crops
Climate Proofing of Food Crops, through genetic improvement for adaptation, is an important, medium-term, objective to ensure food-security and increase production while enhancing the sustainability of agriculture. The IAEA has a Coordinated Research Project discussing this topic (archive version). In the YouTube video here, I discuss some of the challenges plant researchers are addressing, and…
Mateus Mondin University of Sao Paulo Brazil: collaborator
We are collaborating with Professor Doctor Mateus Mondin from the University of São Paulo, ESALQ, Piracicaba, Brazil, on repetitive DNA evolution in Medicago DNA sequences, and its contribution to genome evolution and variation. The environmental, nutritional (animal, and plant through nitrogen fixation) and economic importance of this family, combined with the availability of large amounts of legume DNA…
The genome sequence of banana
300. D’Hont A, Denoeud F, Aury JM, Baurens FC, Carreel F, Garsmeur O, Noel B, Bocs S, Droc G, Rouard M, Da Silva C, Jabbari K, Cardi C, Poulain J, Souquet M, Labadie K, Jourda C, Lengellé J, Rodier-Goud M, Alberti A, Bernard M, Correa M, Ayyampalayam S, McKain MR, Leebens-Mack J, Burgess D, Freeling…
How genomes evolve and their future
296. Heslop-Harrison JS. 2012. Genome evolution: extinction, continuation or explosion? Current Opinion in Plant Biology 15:115–121. Subscription: http://dx.DOI.org/10.1016/j.pbi.2012.03.006. Free Author self-archive preprint here. – Genome-scale evolution involves mutation, chromosomal rearrangements, hybridization and polyploidy – Repeated sequences, not genes, can be localized or dispersed in the genome and make up most of the DNA – Evolutionary processes…
Breeding and superdomestication in banana
293. Heslop-Harrison JS. 2011. Genomics, banana breeding and superdomestication. Proceedings of the International ISHS-ProMusa Symposium on Global Perspectives on Asian Challenges Eds.: Van den Bergh I, Smith M, Swennen R, Hermanto C. Acta Horticulturae 897: 55-62. ISBN: 978-90-66051-38-6 Publisher link. Author preprint. Bananas are important for food security, and even under poor conditions give a useful…
Molecular cytogenetics, genome evolution and agricultural genomics 