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Why Do Some Vertebrates Have Microchromosomes?
With more than 70,000 living species, vertebrates have a huge impact on the field of biology and research, including karyotype evolution. One prominent aspect of many vertebrate karyotypes is the enigmatic occurrence of tiny and often cytogenetically indistinguishable microchromosomes, which possess...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8466491/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34571831 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cells10092182 |
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author | Srikulnath, Kornsorn Ahmad, Syed Farhan Singchat, Worapong Panthum, Thitipong |
author_facet | Srikulnath, Kornsorn Ahmad, Syed Farhan Singchat, Worapong Panthum, Thitipong |
author_sort | Srikulnath, Kornsorn |
collection | PubMed |
description | With more than 70,000 living species, vertebrates have a huge impact on the field of biology and research, including karyotype evolution. One prominent aspect of many vertebrate karyotypes is the enigmatic occurrence of tiny and often cytogenetically indistinguishable microchromosomes, which possess distinctive features compared to macrochromosomes. Why certain vertebrate species carry these microchromosomes in some lineages while others do not, and how they evolve remain open questions. New studies have shown that microchromosomes exhibit certain unique characteristics of genome structure and organization, such as high gene densities, low heterochromatin levels, and high rates of recombination. Our review focuses on recent concepts to expand current knowledge on the dynamic nature of karyotype evolution in vertebrates, raising important questions regarding the evolutionary origins and ramifications of microchromosomes. We introduce the basic karyotypic features to clarify the size, shape, and morphology of macro- and microchromosomes and report their distribution across different lineages. Finally, we characterize the mechanisms of different evolutionary forces underlying the origin and evolution of microchromosomes. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8466491 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-84664912021-09-27 Why Do Some Vertebrates Have Microchromosomes? Srikulnath, Kornsorn Ahmad, Syed Farhan Singchat, Worapong Panthum, Thitipong Cells Review With more than 70,000 living species, vertebrates have a huge impact on the field of biology and research, including karyotype evolution. One prominent aspect of many vertebrate karyotypes is the enigmatic occurrence of tiny and often cytogenetically indistinguishable microchromosomes, which possess distinctive features compared to macrochromosomes. Why certain vertebrate species carry these microchromosomes in some lineages while others do not, and how they evolve remain open questions. New studies have shown that microchromosomes exhibit certain unique characteristics of genome structure and organization, such as high gene densities, low heterochromatin levels, and high rates of recombination. Our review focuses on recent concepts to expand current knowledge on the dynamic nature of karyotype evolution in vertebrates, raising important questions regarding the evolutionary origins and ramifications of microchromosomes. We introduce the basic karyotypic features to clarify the size, shape, and morphology of macro- and microchromosomes and report their distribution across different lineages. Finally, we characterize the mechanisms of different evolutionary forces underlying the origin and evolution of microchromosomes. MDPI 2021-08-24 /pmc/articles/PMC8466491/ /pubmed/34571831 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cells10092182 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Review Srikulnath, Kornsorn Ahmad, Syed Farhan Singchat, Worapong Panthum, Thitipong Why Do Some Vertebrates Have Microchromosomes? |
title | Why Do Some Vertebrates Have Microchromosomes? |
title_full | Why Do Some Vertebrates Have Microchromosomes? |
title_fullStr | Why Do Some Vertebrates Have Microchromosomes? |
title_full_unstemmed | Why Do Some Vertebrates Have Microchromosomes? |
title_short | Why Do Some Vertebrates Have Microchromosomes? |
title_sort | why do some vertebrates have microchromosomes? |
topic | Review |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8466491/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34571831 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cells10092182 |
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