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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2011 Sep 29.
Published in final edited form as: Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol. 2011 Mar 29;75:345–356. doi: 10.1101/sqb.2010.75.030

FIGURE 3. L1 LINE density versus gene density across all human chromosomes and the XE escape domain.

FIGURE 3

The silenced region of the X-chromosome (XS) has the highest LINE 1 (L1) density compared to each chromosome in the human genome as well as to the escape region of the X (XE). Note that autosomes show significant variations in the density of L1 elements, but this data shows the XS has significantly more than the most enriched autosome (Chr 4) which has similar gene density. Since LINE content is known to correlate with gene density, it was important to show that the difference is not simply explained by gene density. This data also shows that the Y chromosome is more enriched in L1s than autosomes, consistent with the possibility that some of the evolutionary accumulation of LINE elements on the sex chromosomes may have to do with their lower recombination frequency. Figure reproduced from McNeil et al., 2006.