Cytological characterization of the mtDNA-insertion locus on chromosome
2 of A. thaliana. (A) The 491-kb contig
of chromosome 2 sequenced by Lin et al. (6) consists of
six BAC clones and includes two flanking nuclear BACs and four
mtDNA-related BACs (see Results). Kilobase sizes are
based on the sequencing data. (B) Hybridization of a
mtDNA-related BAC T17H1 to the somatic metaphase chromosomes of
A. thaliana (ecotype Columbia-0). (B
Left) Propidium iodide-stained somatic metaphase chromosomes.
(B Center) FISH signals detected by fluorescein
isothiocyanate (green color). (B Right) A merged image
of chromosomes and FISH signals. Hybridization signals were detected
only in the pericentric regions on one pair of submetacentric
chromosomes. (Bar = 2 μm.) (C) Homology of the
four mtDNA-related BACs to the published C24 A. thaliana
mitochondrial genome (11). Approximately 97 kb of the mtDNA genome is
not present in the contig presented in A. The
organization of the A, B, C, and D domains was originally proposed by
Lin et al. (6) but is incorrectly represented in their
figure 7 B and C. The green dots
represent the two sets of specific repeats in the mitochondrial genome.
The outside arrow points to the possible insertion point (see ref. 6).
(D) Hybridization of the six BACs in A to
DNA fibers of A. thaliana. The two nuclear flanking BACs
are detected by FITC (green) and the four mtDNA-related BACs by
rhodamine (red). The mtDNA-related BACs do not hybridize to a gap
region. (Bar = 20 μm.) (E Upper) The gap region
within the mtDNA insertion is localized to the telomere-proximal end by
cohybridization of the telomere-flanking BAC clone F9A16 (green) with
the four mtDNA-related BAC clones (red). (E
Lower) Cohybridization of four mtDNA-related BACs (in
red) with a set of 15 cosmid clones (in green), which comprise the
complete mitochondrial genome of A. thaliana. The gap is
filled by green signals derived from the cosmids, indicating that
regions of the mitochondrial genome not included in the sequenced BAC
contig are present within the mtDNA insertion locus on the chromosome.
(Bar = 10 μm.) (F) DNA fiber hybridized with
telomere-proximal BAC clone F9A16 (green) and mtDNA-derived BAC clone
T5M2 (red). T5M2 shows a triplet pattern. (Bar = 20 μm.)
(G) DNA fiber hybridized with the first mtDNA BAC T5M2 (red) and the second mtDNA BAC
T17H1 (green). These two BACs, which share ≈54-kb sequence, display a
similar pattern with the same three units of repetition. A short signal
derived from T17H1 (arrow) also was observed between the long
telomere-proximal and middle T17H1 signals. (Bar = 20 μm.)
(H) DNA fiber hybridized with the second mtDNA BAC T17H1
(green) and the third mtDNA BAC T18C6 (red). Signals derived from T18C6
also appear in triplicate. However, the centromere-proximal unit is
longer than the other two. (Bar = 20 μm.) (I) DNA
fiber hybridized with the fourth mtDNA BAC T5E7 (red) and
centromere-proximal BAC T18A9 (green). The signal derived from T5E7 is
not repeated. (Bar = 20 μm.) (J) Proposed
structure of mitochondrial insertion locus and its relationship with
the four mtDNA domains (the length of each repetitive unit is based on
fiber-FISH data and is thus a representation of mean kilobase
estimates). As in C, the green dots represent the two
sets of specific repeats.