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. 1990 Nov;10(11):6079–6083. doi: 10.1128/mcb.10.11.6079

Chromosome organization of the protozoan Trypanosoma brucei.

K Gottesdiener 1, J Garciá-Anoveros 1, M G Lee 1, L H Van der Ploeg 1
PMCID: PMC361410  PMID: 2233733

Abstract

The genome of the protozoan Trypanosoma brucei is known to be diploid. Karyotype analysis has, however, failed to identify homologous chromosomes. Having refined the technique for separating trypanosome chromosomes (L. H. T. Van der Ploeg, C. L. Smith, R. I. Polvere, and K. Gottesdiener, Nucleic Acids Res. 17:3217-3227, 1989), we can now provide evidence for the presence of homologous chromosomes. By determining the chromosomal location of different genetic markers, most of the chromosomes (14, excluding the minichromosomes), could be organized into seven chromosome pairs. In most instances, the putative homologs of a pair differed in size by about 20%. Restriction enzyme analysis of chromosome-sized DNA showed that these chromosome pairs contained large stretches of homologous DNA sequences. From these data, we infer that the chromosome pairs represent homologs. The identification of homologous chromosomes gives valuable insight into the organization of the trypanosome genome, will facilitate the genetic analysis of T. brucei, and suggests the presence of haploid gametes.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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