Intergenic Locations of Rice Centromeric Chromatin
[['Centromeres are the essential sites on eukaryotic chromosomes that assemble kinetochores for attachment to spindle microtubules in mitosis and meiosis .', 'Multicellular eukaryotes have “regional” centromeres encompassing hundreds of kilobases that are often located in megabase-sized arrays of 150–180-bp AT-rich tandem repeats known as satellite DNA .', 'Centromeric satellite repeats evolve rapidly and show little sequence conservation even between related species [1] .', 'Despite the frequent occurrence of regional centromeres in satellite arrays , in many eukaryotes centromere location appears to be specified epigenetically [2] by the deposition of specialized nucleosomes containing a centromere-specific variant of histone H3 , often known as CENH3 ( Centromeric H3 ) or as CENP-A , after the mammalian centromeric histone [3] .', 'Evidence for the epigenetic nature of centromeres comes from neocentromeres , the rare sites of spontaneous CENP-A nucleosome deposition described in humans , flies , and barley , that assemble functional kinetochores on DNA sequences that lack any sequence similarity to the normal centromeres [4 , 5] .', 'Experimental overexpression of CENH3 in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster likewise produced functional kinetochores on normally noncentromeric sequences [6] .', 'These observations suggest that CENH3 nucleosomes and kinetochores can assemble on any DNA sequence , but in nature , they normally prefer specific satellite sequences .', 'In animal centromeres , CENH3/CENP-A binding is discontinuous , with regions of CENH3/CENP-A nucleosomes interspersed with regions of H3-containing nucleosomes [7] .', 'Similar discontinuous regions of CENP-A binding have been observed in human neocentromeres [8 , 9] and artificial chromosomes [10] .', 'In rice ( Oryza sativa ) , the binding domains for CENH3 ( the National Center for Biotechnology Information [NCBI] Protein accession number AAR85315 ) have been mapped for two centromeres , Cen3 and Cen8 [11–13] .', 'These two domains show evidence of containing both CENH3 and H3 nucleosomes , but previous methods were unable to map distinct CENH3-binding and CENH3-lacking subdomains .', 'Precise mapping of CENH3 nucleosome subdomains is an essential first step in understanding both the structure of centromeres and why CENH3 nucleosomes are assembled and maintained at some locations and not others .', 'Such precise mapping is not possible for most animal and plant centromeres because of highly repetitive satellite sequences , but some rice centromeres have relatively little of the rice-specific centromeric satellite sequence CentO [14] .', 'Here , we use chromatin immunoprecipitation ( ChIP ) with 454 sequencing technology to map nine out of 12 rice centromeres , and to map CENH3-binding subdomains in the four centromeres that have the most complete sequence .', 'We show that CENH3-binding subdomains are depleted in genes relative to adjacent CENH3-lacking subdomains , suggesting a model in which low transcriptional activity is important for the establishment of new centromere sequences and their evolution into mature centromeres .'], ['We previously defined the crossover-suppressed regions for two rice centromeres , Cen3 [13] and Cen8 [12] , which span 3 , 113 kb and 2 , 312 kb , respectively .', 'The CENH3-binding domains in these two centromeres were estimated to span approximately 1 , 810 kb and 750 kb , respectively , and reside within the crossover-suppressed regions .', 'By using the same approach , we have defined the crossover-suppressed regions for the remaining ten centromeres and placed them on physical maps of the centromere regions ( Figure S1 ) .', 'There were 14 physical gaps in the 12 rice centromeric regions of the current rice chromosome pseudomolecules ( http://rice . plantbiology . msu . edu/ ) .', 'The gap in centromere 3 ( Cen3 ) was previously estimated as approximately 450 kb based on fluorescent in situ hybridization ( FISH ) on extended DNA fibers [13] .', 'The other 13 gaps had a combined size of approximately 5 . 9 Mb ( Figure S1 ) .', 'Among them , the size for four gaps ( ∼0 . 54 Mb in total ) was also estimated by FISH and fiber-FISH , including the 111-kb gap in Cen4 [15] , the 69-kb gap in Cen10 [16] , the 310-kb gap in Cen7 , and the 50-kb in Cen11 [17] .', 'The remaining nine gaps , together approximately 5 . 35 Mb , were each sized by optical mapping [18] .', 'Including these physical gaps , the sizes of the crossover-suppressed domains vary between 1 , 447 kb ( Cen10 ) and 5 , 449 kb ( Cen6 ) .', 'Eight of the 12 centromeres have a CentO-containing sequence gap of at least 300 kb .', 'In contrast , the remaining four centromeres contain only a limited amount of the CentO repeat ( ∼60–250 kb ) , including Cen4 [15] and Cen8 [11] , whose CentO arrays have been fully sequenced , and Cen5 and Cen7 , which each have a <100-kb CentO-containing sequence gap .', 'The DNA sequences of these four centromeres provide the foundation for using a high-throughput approach to profile the CENH3 occupancy in these centromeres .', 'A rice anti-CENH3 antibody was used for ChIP , and the immunoprecipitated DNA was sequenced ( ChIP-Seq ) using the 454 sequencing technology .', 'As expected , CentO-related reads were highly overrepresented in the 325 , 298 reads in this ChIP-Seq dataset , with 34 . 7% of the reads matching the CentO consensus for at least 20 bp ( Figure S2 ) .', 'This represents over 17-fold enrichment genome-wide , considering that the approximately 7 Mb of CentO satellite repeats , as estimated by FISH and by optical mapping , nearly all of them present in the centromeric regions , account for less than 2% of the approximately 382-Mb rice genome [14 , 18] .', 'We used the BLAST program to map the remaining 212 , 086 CentO-less reads to the rice genome .', 'To test our expectation that these mapped reads are highly enriched in the centromeric regions , we divided each chromosome into 20-kb windows , positioned every 10 kb , and plotted the read count within each window along its chromosome position .', 'This analysis gave background reads on individual chromosome arms that appeared to be highly uniform , ranging from 7 . 4 to eight reads per 20 kb .', 'These background reads most likely represent technical “noise” in the assay .', 'However , we cannot exclude the possibility that they represent real noncentromeric signal , because CENH3 has been observed to localize at low levels throughout pachytene chromosomes in Arabidopsis thaliana [19] and is known to localize in euchromatin when overexpressed in animals [20] .', 'The analysis also revealed conspicuous peaks within the four best-sequenced centromeres , spanning approximately 820 kb in Cen4 , approximately 630 kb in Cen5 , approximately 420 kb in Cen7 , and approximately 815 kb in Cen8 ( Figure 1A ) .', 'Cen10 had a lower level of read enrichment; however , a region of approximately 610 kb that showed clear CENH3 binding was readily identified .', 'In all five cases , the defined CENH3 domain spanned the entire CentO-containing sequence gap and the assembled major CentO arrays in the pseudomolecules .', 'We did not detect clear peaks in the other seven centromeres ( Figure 1A ) .', 'The presumed repetitiveness of the sequences in the remaining seven centromeres may prevent detection of the expected sequence read enrichment , since reads of repeated sequences cannot be mapped to specific locations .', 'Four of these seven centromeres ( Cen1 , Cen2 , Cen6 , and Cen11 ) had >600-kb CentO repeats , and the other three ( Cen3 , Cen9 , and Cen12 ) had >400-kb CentO repeats .', 'In addition , over 70% of the sequence reads that were not mapped to specific locations due to their high copy number or multiple identical matches had significant hits ( above the cutoff ) in the centromeres .', 'To estimate the read densities of “unmappable” repetitive subregions for these seven centromeres , we made the simplifying assumption that their densities would be the same as immediately flanking “mappable” subregions .', 'Within each 20-kb window , we identified subregions that are either highly repetitive ( ≥50 copies ) or represent identical duplicates in the genome .', 'We then calculated the size of mappable sequences for each 20-kb window by subtracting the length of the above unmappable subregions from 20 kb .', 'For each window , we extrapolated the read count of the mappable sequence over the whole 20-kb window .', 'As a control , we went through the same procedure for approximately 2 Mb of sequences flanking the crossover-suppressed domain on each chromosome arm .', 'This read-density plotting revealed the boundaries for four additional centromeres , including Cen1 ( ∼880 kb ) , Cen3 ( ∼1 , 210 kb ) , Cen9 ( ∼500 kb ) , and Cen12 ( ∼390 kb ) ( Figure 1B ) .', 'However , we were not able to define the boundaries of the CENH3-binding domains for Cen2 ( ∼630 kb CentO ) , Cen6 ( ∼880 kb CentO ) , and Cen11 ( ∼2 Mb CentO ) .', 'Because the CENH3-binding domains in most rice centromeres span 500–1 , 000 kb and all rice centromeres are known to contain CentO [14] , we predict that the CENH3-binding domains of Cen2 , Cen6 , and Cen11 contain mainly unmappable CentO repeats .', 'Finally , we used real-time PCR to verify the CENH3 binding at five of the centromeres , including Cen1 , Cen3 , Cen9 , Cen10 , and Cen12 .', 'Three to five primer pairs ( primer numbers 72–109 , Table S1 ) were designed to target the read-density peaks in the vicinity of each defined border of the CENH3-binding domains ( indicated by arrows in Figure 1B ) .', 'These primer pairs showed 3 . 7-fold to 57 . 4-fold enrichment of ChIPed DNA over the mock control ( p = 0 . 03 – 7 . 8 × 10−7 , one-tailed Student t-test; Figure S3 ) .', 'These data supported our defining of the CENH3 boundary by using the normalized ChIP-Seq profiles .', 'A genome-wide duplication event is thought to have occurred during rice genome evolution because extensive regions of syntenic paralogous genes exist between several chromosome pairs [21 , 22] .', 'If rice centromeres have ancient origins and have stable locations , they may therefore also exist as pairs of paralogs .', 'Synteny of paralogous centromeric regions might be obscured , though , because centromeres are frequent sites for rearrangements [23] .', 'For example , Cen8 has been subject to a rearrangement and positional shift compared with relatives that diverged about 5 and 10 million years ago ( Mya ) [24 , 25] ( Figure 2 ) .', 'To investigate the divergence of paralogous centromeric regions , we sought to identify any possible homologous segments of Cen8 in the rice genome by searching paralogous genes that share significant sequence similarity to the 29 active genes ( 21 with expressed sequence tag [EST]/cDNA and eight supported by reverse-transcriptase PCR ( RT-PCR ) ) located in the 1-Mb sequence spanning Cen8 ( Table 1 ) .', 'We identified apparently functional paralogs for 17 of the 29 genes ( Table S2 ) .', 'Twelve of these 17 Cen8 genes ( Cen8 . t00715 . 1 and Cen8 . t00724 . 1 to Cen8 . t01259 . 1 ) showed 49%–97% protein identity with their respective paralogs ( Figure 2 ) .', 'These 12 pairs of genes are highly conserved in the number of exons and the size of internal exons .', 'Furthermore , five of these 12 Cen8 genes , together spanning a region of 827 kb that covers over 94% of the functional core , best matched another set of five genes scattered over a 544-kb region on the short arm of chromosome 9 ( Loc_Os09g02270 . 1 to Loc_Os09g03090 . 1 , Figure 2 ) .', 'The major portion of this segment on chromosome 9 ( ∼471 kb ) is located within the crossover-suppressed domain of Cen9 and is approximately 1 , 280 kb away from the CentO array of Cen9 .', 'The structural changes between the two duplicated segments are profound , including rearrangements of the conserved five gene pairs , as well as a lack of conservation for the majority of the active genes: 12 out of the 17 genes from chromosome 9 , and 24 out of the 29 genes from Cen8 .', 'To define the boundaries of this duplicated region , we searched for nontransposable element ( non-TE ) genic matches to the rice genome within the 2 , 481 kb of DNA that flanks the short arm ( 1 , 259 kb ) and long arm ( 1 , 222 kb ) sides of the 1-Mb Cen8-spanning region [12] .', 'The active genes from the 1 , 259-kb short-arm side had no matches in the vicinity of the 544-kb syntenic region on chromosome 9 .', 'However , nine genes ( Cen8 . t01272 . 1 to Cen8 . t01718 . 1 ) from the 1 , 222-kb long-arm side had best matched paralogs in a 2 , 394-kb block on the long arm of chromosome 9 , while another 11 Cen8 genes had best-matched paralogs elsewhere ( Loc_Os08g38400 . 1 to Loc_Os01g38100 . 1 , Figure 2 ) .', 'The two syntenic blocks on chromosome 9 are separated by a region of approximately 2 , 487 kb ( including the 302-kb gap ) that contains the functional core of Cen9 .', 'Thus , Cen8 structurally resembles a deletion product derived from the Cen9 region ( Figure 2 ) .', 'These syntenic blocks suggest that centromere function has remained within a region of approximately 3 Mb since the divergence of Cen8 and chromosome 9 , although the actual sequences of the functional centromere core have changed dramatically .', 'Except for paralog Loc_Os09g10620 . 1 , which was not assayed by reverse-transcriptase PCR ( RT-PCR ) , all of the other 19 ( 9 + 11 − 1 ) paralogs for genes from the long-arm side are active genes with cognate ESTs/cDNAs or positive RT-PCR ( primers 22–29 in Table S1 ) .', 'We evaluated the divergence of expression between eight of the 14 syntenic gene pairs by real-time RT-PCR using locus-specific primers ( primers 40–71 in Table S1 ) .', 'RT-PCR results confirmed that these genes are transcribed in all five cDNA samples , including leaves , roots , etiolated leaves/shoots , calli , and panicle ( unpublished data ) , suggesting no difference in tissue specificity for these gene pairs .', 'Nevertheless , real-time RT-PCR assays revealed significant alteration in levels of expression between these gene pairs in one to five cDNA samples ( Figure S4 ) .', 'Genes with relatively higher or lower levels of expression are not biased towards the Cen8 or chromosome 9 segment .', 'For example , gene Cen8 . t00793 . 1 had a significantly higher level of expression than its paralog Loc_Os09g02440 . 1 in three of the tissues; in contrast , gene Cen8 . t00960 . 1 had a markedly reduced level of expression compared with Loc_Os09g03090 . 1 across all the five tissues .', 'To determine whether this duplication is confined to Oryza sativa ( 2n = 24 , AA genome ) or shared by other Oryza species , we compared protein sequences from these 14 pairs of genes to approximately 146 Mb of genome survey sequences in GenBank representing 11%–13% genome coverage from two non-AA species: O . brachyantha ( 2n = 24 , FF genome ) and O . granulata ( 2n = 24 , GG genome ) .', 'For the Cen8 genes , we have identified five putative orthologs in O . brachyantha and three in O . granulata; for the chromosome 9 genes , we have identified five putative orthologs in O . brachyantha and four in O . granulata ( Table S3 ) .', 'Therefore , this duplication predated the approximately 10 Mya of divergence between O . sativa and the most distantly related Oryza species O . granulata [25] .', 'We used the YN00 program available in PAML 4 [26] to obtain an approximate estimation of age for the divergence of Cen8 genes and their chromosome 9 paralogs , using a substitution rate of 6 . 5 × 10−9 per synonymous site per year in rice [27] .', 'These 14 pairs of duplicated genes had an average Ks of 0 . 7717 ± 0 . 1927 ( mean ± standard deviation [SD] ) , corresponding to a divergence time of 59 . 4 ( ±14 . 8 ) Mya ( Table 2 ) .', 'This date is similar to the estimated age of 53–76 Mya for the divergence time of the duplicate chromosomes in a whole-genome duplication event that is hypothesized to have occurred prior to the radiation of grasses [22] .', 'Synteny of this age between chromosome 8 and chromosome 9 was previously described as part of this whole-genome duplication , but these reports did not include the centromere region [21 , 22] .', 'Our previous real-time PCR- and hybridization-based assays revealed that the occupancy of CENH3 in the functional domain of rice Cen8 [11] and Cen3 [13] is not continuous .', 'Nevertheless , the extent of CENH3 binding and its positioning relative to that of the canonical histone H3 remained elusive .', 'In the present study , we observed marked enrichment of ChIP sequence reads within Cen4 , Cen5 , Cen7 , and Cen8 , thus enabling us to profile the CENH3 binding at these four centromeres at a much higher resolution using 1-kb sliding windows ( Figure 3 ) .', 'This plotting revealed two to six major subdomains of CENH3 binding within the four centromeres , ranging in size from a 6-kb subdomain in Cen8 up to a subdomain of approximately 365 kb in Cen7 .', 'Cen4 , Cen5 , and Cen8 shared a similar pattern of CENH3 occupancy: each had five to six major CENH3 subdomains that together occupied 38%–49% of the entire functional core .', 'In contrast , Cen7 had a distinctive CENH3 organization in which its 420-kb functional core was predominantly occupied by the two major CENH3 subdomains of 45 kb and approximately 365 kb , although we can not determine whether CENH3 binding is continuous over the central CentO array .', 'We were unable to identify any sequence motifs that appeared to be putative boundary elements or that otherwise could predict the boundaries of these subdomains .', 'Our previous analyses showed that active genes occur in the functional domains of Cen3 and Cen8 , but that gene density is reduced relative to flanking pericentric regions [12 , 13] .', 'Low gene density might reflect a preferential association of CENH3 nucleosomes with nongenic DNA sequence , or it might simply reflect the random accumulation of transposons and satellites in a crossover-free region; in which case , we would expect CENH3 subdomains to include genes in proportion to the fraction of the total functional domain that these subdomains occupy .', 'However , our earlier data provided only limited information about the distribution of CENH3 nucleosomes relative to genes .', 'We previously identified 16 active genes from the functional core of Cen8 that were enriched for H3K4me2 [12] .', 'CENH3 is sufficiently dissimilar from H3 so that the H3K4me2 antibody should only recognize H3 , but not CENH3 , thus linking these active genes to regions of H3 nucleosomes .', 'To verify this inference , we conducted a comprehensive annotation for transcribed regions from the set of four 1-Mb sequences that span the functional core of Cen4 , Cen5 , Cen7 , and Cen8 .', 'By using over 1 . 2 million publicly available rice ESTs and full-length cDNAs ( fl-cDNAs ) , we identified a total of 108 regions as being transcribed , including 70 regions harboring non–TE-related protein-coding genes ( Tables 1 and S4 ) .', 'Strikingly , only five of these regions were located in the CENH3 subdomains ( Figures 4 and S5; Table 1 ) , including three TE-related genes in Cen8 ( Cen8 . t13171 . 1 , Cen8 . t13349 . 1 , and Cen8 . t13363 . 1 ) with unspliced ESTs .', 'Real-time PCR analysis confirmed that these five genes indeed resided within the CENH3 subdomains ( primers 1 , 3–4 , and 6–12 in Table S1; Figure S6 ) .', 'Excluding gene Cen8 . t01075 . 1 [12] , which overlapped a CENH3 peak in its intron , we used RT-PCR to verify the expression of the remaining four genes across a panel of four different tissues ( primers 1–2 , 4–5 , and 7–10 in Table S1 ) .', 'Three of the four genes were confirmed to be transcribed in at least three different cDNA samples ( Figure S7 ) , suggesting that the CENH3-containing nucleosomes are likely to be compatible with transcription .', 'We further mapped a total of 222 massively parallel signature sequencing ( MPSS ) mRNA tags ( 17 or 20 bp ) to the four centromeres .', 'Most of the tags were mapped to regions corresponding to annotated active genes in the CENH3-lacking subdomains .', 'Only two tags were derived from regions with CENH3 binding , one in Cen4 ( Figure S5 ) and the second one in Cen7 ( Figure 4 ) .', 'Likewise , hypothetical genes solely predicted by gene finders were also significantly biased away from the CENH3-binding subdomains .', 'Out of the 65 genes predicted from these 4-Mb sequences , only six were found to reside within the CENH3 subdomains ( Table 1 ) .', 'Primers were designed for three of these hypothetical genes ( primers 15–19 and 21 in Table S1 ) , and real-time PCR analysis verified their association with CENH3 binding ( Figure S6 ) .', 'Of the six genes , Cen8 . t00761 . 1 was previously known to be inactive in all of the four tissues [12]; we performed RT-PCR on three other genes ( primers 13–14 and 17–20 in Table S1 ) , confirming Loc_Os08g22389 . 1 as the only active gene ( Figure S7 ) .', 'A close examination of these active genes ( supported by ESTs and cDNAs ) within the four 1-Mb centromeric regions revealed two distinct patterns of organization .', 'Cen4 , Cen5 , and Cen8 each had six to 13 active genes within the core , and 11 out of the 14 intervening regions between major CENH3 subdomains each had at least one active gene .', 'However , we did not identify any active gene in the approximately 420-kb core of Cen7 , which showed a much higher proportion of CENH3 occupancy than the other three centromeres .', 'The 18 active genes from the 1-Mb region spanning this centromere were all present in the flanking regions .', 'In addition , of the 287 MPSS small RNA signatures mapped to the four 1-Mb sequences , over 96% matched sequences from the CENH3-lacking subdomains , reflecting a pattern highly consistent with what we have seen for the centromere-derived mRNA and cDNA sequences .', 'Collectively , these data show that genes are almost entirely confined to the CENH3-lacking subdomains in rice centromeres ( Figures 4 and S5 ) .', 'A centromere might evolve from an ordinary genomic region via a neocentromeric intermediate [28] .', 'The lack of genes and transcription in the CENH3 subdomains is consistent with two alternative hypotheses regarding the origin and evolution of rice centromeres .', 'The CENH3 subdomains originally might have contained a similar density of active genes as the flanking CENH3-lacking subdomains , but most of these genes have lost their function and degenerated during centromere evolution .', 'According to this hypothesis , for the genes that were functional prior to the centromere formation , we would be able to identify a nonfunctional gene copy or gene fragment in the CENH3 subdomains of the present-day centromeres .', 'Alternatively , the original CENH3 subdomains might have been quite small and thus contained few active genes .', 'During centromere evolution , individual CENH3 subdomains might have expanded as a result of TE insertion , satellite amplification , or both .', 'To distinguish these possibilities , we looked for instances where active genes from outside of centromeres have homologs in the centromeric regions , which we examined for evidence of deterioration .', 'We first divided the 372-Mb finished sequence of the rice genome into two portions: the 4-Mb sequences corresponding to the four centromeres as discussed above and the remaining 368-Mb DNA .', 'We then compared all the non–TE-related active genes ( with cognate ESTs or cDNAs ) from the 368-Mb DNA to the 4-Mb centromere sequences by Tblastn .', 'We identified eight regions in the CENH3 subdomains that showed sequence similarity to active genes located elsewhere .', 'We manually checked the sequence alignments between these eight centromere regions and their respective homologous genes outside of the centromeres , and found that the centromeric homologs were associated with a premature stop codon ( three genes ) , frame shift ( one gene ) , or truncation of coding sequence ( three genes ) .', 'The presence of a premature stop codon or frame shift is strong evidence for a pseudogene status; for the genes whose parental genes have only a single coding exon , truncation of the CDS also suggests a pseudogene status [29] .', 'Based on this analysis , seven genes can be classified as pseudogenes ( Table S5 ) .', 'Finally , for five of the eight centromeric genes , including Cen7 . t12284 . 1ψ for which no sign of deterioration was detected , we designed primers ( primers 30–39 in Table S1 ) from the putative exons for RT-PCR analysis .', 'None of the primer pairs yielded amplification in any of the four tissues ( unpublished data ) .', 'Therefore , we conclude that all these eight genes from the CENH3 subdomains are pseudogenes .', 'For comparison , we similarly searched for sequence similarity between active genes located outside of the four centromeres and the CENH3-lacking subdomains of Cen8 , and found 40 such regions ( 43 Cen8 regions – 3 in CENH3-binding subdomains; Table S2 ) .', 'Twenty-three of them matched: intergenic regions ( 15 − 3 ) , introns of active genes ( 2 ) , inactive genes ( 6 ) , or noncoding regions ( 3 ) , and all but two of them displayed features of deterioration , resembling those from the CENH3 subdomains .', 'The fact that CENH3 subdomains have far fewer active genes , predicted genes , and pseudogenes than CENH3-lacking subdomains suggests that the regions to which the CENH3 was deposited during centromere formation originally had few genes .'], ['Our genome-wide determination of CENH3 binding has mapped the boundaries of nine of the 12 rice centromeres despite their location predominantly in highly repetitive CentO satellite sequences .', 'Within four of these centromeres , we mapped discontinuous CENH3-binding subdomains ranging in size from 6 kb to approximately 365 kb .', 'Previously , mapping of discontinuous CENH3-binding at the sequence level has only been possible in two human neocentromeres [8 , 9] because of their lack of highly repetitive sequences .', 'The CENH3 subdomains mapped here from four natural centromeres resemble those from neocentromeres in that they vary in size and spacing .', 'Remarkably , these regions are deficient in both genes and pseudogenes compared with adjacent CENH3-lacking subdomains , strongly suggesting that they were gene poor at the time CENH3 became established in these subdomains .', 'DNA sequences in rice such as retrotransposons are typically removed in a few million years through unequal homologous recombination and illegitimate recombination [30 , 31] .', 'We therefore cannot formally exclude the possibility that genes and pseudogenes have been preferentially removed from CENH3-binding subdomains , but we know of no reason to expect that these processes would selectively remove pseudogenes from the CENH3-binding subdomains but not from the interspersed CENH3-lacking subdomains of Cen8 .', 'We therefore think it is more likely that CENH3-binding subdomains are preferentially established in regions depleted of genes .', 'New centromeres have been proposed to arise from neocentromeres that subsequently accumulate satellite sequences [28] .', 'Cen8 is similar to neocentromeres in having a substantial amount of unique sequences , with only approximately 70 kb of the rice centromeric satellite CentO in a 750-kb CENH3-binding region that includes active genes [11 , 12] .', 'Cen8 thus resembles a transition stage between a neocentromere and a centromere composed of satellite repeats [11] .', 'Recently , this view has been challenged based on evidence that the orthologous regions to Cen8 in the related wild rice species O . brachyantha and O . officinalis have an inversion of marker order [24] .', 'These authors suggested that Cen8 was instead derived by recent rearrangement from an ancestral centromere with a typical large satellite array .', 'An ancient satellite array can also be inferred from comparison with the paralogous region that includes Cen9 ( Figure 2 ) and with Cen8 from the closely related rice species O . punctata , in which CENH3 binds to a CentO array estimated to be 1 . 4 Mb [32] .', 'These observations suggest that a conventional satellite array served as the centromere on chromosome 8 from prior to the divergence of grasses 50–70 Mya until after the divergence of closely related rice species approximately 5 Mya .', 'However , the existence of an ancient satellite array that was subsequently lost can be viewed as supporting a neocentromere-like origin of the present rice Cen8 , which occupies largely nonsatellite sequences that presumably did not function as a centromere prior to rearrangement sometime within the last approximately 5 Mya .', 'Cen8 differs from mammalian neocentromeres , however , in being located within a few megabases of the ancestral satellite array and perhaps retaining a small piece of that array , whereas mammalian neocentromeres form with no satellite sequences at many locations that are cytologically distant from the previous centromere .', 'Despite these differences , the similarities between Cen8 and neocentromeres suggest that common processes underlie the formation of both .', 'Like Cen8 , neocentromeres have appeared in gene-poor regions following chromosome rearrangements that delete or disrupt native centromeres .', 'For example , rare human centromere “shifts” are associated with simultaneous deletion of centromeric alpha-satellite [4] .', 'Two neocentromeres in 15q24–26 were found near rearrangement breakpoints [33] , suggesting a possible direct role for rearrangements in both neocentromere and Cen8 formation , perhaps through chromatin remodeling associated with DNA repair .', 'In maize , an inversion with one break in centromeric satellite generated a new centromere adjacent to but not including one portion of the split satellite array [34] .', 'Other neocentromeres have been found in large ( 0 . 8–3 . 9 Mb ) gene-free or gene-poor regions [35 , 36] , and the discontinuous binding of CENP-A in one neocentromere was found in intergenic subregions of an otherwise relatively gene-rich region [9] .', 'These observations echo the gene depletion we see in the CENH3-binding subdomains of four native rice centromeres , and strongly suggest that gene activity , although not completely incompatible with centromere function , is detrimental to neocentromere establishment and centromere maintenance .', 'This is consistent with the facts that regional centromeres in plants and animals typically occupy nongenic satellites , and that the short centromeres of several unicellular eukaryotes also reside in smaller ( 4–18 kb ) gene-free regions [37–39] .', 'Gene transcription results in nucleosome replacement [40] , and transcription disrupts the single centromeric nucleosome of a budding yeast “point” centromere [41] .', 'In Drosophila , CENH3 nucleosomes have been shown to be heterotypic tetramers that wrap only a single turn of DNA , in contrast to octameric H3 nucleosomes [42] , and this may make them more susceptible to displacement by transcription .', 'CENH3 nucleosomes can be normally incorporated into euchromatic regions [19] , and transcription may be important for evicting them so that they can be degraded by proteasomes [43] .', 'Many satellites are also transcribed , but most such transcripts are processed into short interfering RNAs ( siRNAs ) that result in H3 methylation and silencing , keeping satellite transcription at very low levels [32 , 44–46] .', 'Regions of low gene activity may therefore favor retention of enough CENH3 nucleosomes to establish and maintain kinetochore function .', 'Neocentromeres are smaller and have less CENP-A than normal human centromeres [47] , suggesting that they must expand if they are to become successful mature centromeres .', 'The Cen8 region has expanded by segmental duplication [48] and by insertion of retrotransposons , which comprise nearly a third of Cen8 [12] and which are enriched relative to the orthologous region of O . brachyantha [24] .', 'New retrotransposons are likely to become silenced and methylated on histone H3K9 , which is incompatible with kinetochore function [10] .', 'However , once retrotransposons mutate to nonfunctionality , silencing may be lost and degenerating retrotransposons may contribute to the growth of nongenic CENH3-binding regions , and hence to expanded centromere variants that become rapidly fixed through centromere competition in female meiosis [1] .', 'Regional centromeres that consist of unique sequences like neocentromeres and Cen8 appe
['Introduction', 'Results', 'Discussion', 'Materials and Methods']
['Centromeres are sites for assembly of the chromosomal structures that mediate faithful segregation at mitosis and meiosis .', 'Plant and animal centromeres are typically located in megabase-sized arrays of tandem satellite repeats , making their precise mapping difficult .', 'However , some rice centromeres are largely embedded in nonsatellite DNA , providing an excellent model to study centromere structure and evolution .', 'We used chromatin immunoprecipitation and 454 sequencing to define the boundaries of nine of the 12 centromeres of rice .', 'Centromere regions from chromosomes 8 and 9 were found to share synteny , most likely reflecting an ancient genome duplication .', 'For four centromeres , we mapped discrete subdomains of binding by the centromeric histone variant CENH3 .', 'These subdomains were depleted in both intact and nonfunctional genes relative to interspersed subdomains lacking CENH3 .', 'The intergenic location of rice centromeric chromatin resembles the situation for human neocentromeres and supports a model of the evolution of centromeres from gene-poor regions .']
['Before a cell divides , its chromosomes must be duplicated and then separated to provide each daughter cell with an identical genome copy .', 'To accomplish this separation , the cell-division apparatus attaches to structures on the chromosomes called centromeres .', 'Most plant and animal centromeres contain highly repetitive DNA sequences and specific proteins such as CENH3; however , it is not known which of the many repeats bind CENH3 .', 'Some rice centromeres , however , consist largely of single-copy DNA , providing a tractable model for investigating CENH3-binding patterns .', 'Using modern DNA sequencing technology and an antibody to CENH3 , we were able to find which sequences in the rice genome are bound by CENH3 .', 'We uncovered evidence that one centromere , Cen8 , which has lost much of its repetitive content through a rearrangement within the last approximately 5 million years , is derived from a highly repetitive centromeric region that was duplicated along with the rest of the genome 50–70 million years ago .', 'We also found that CENH3 is bound discontinuously in centromeric subdomains that have fewer genes than subdomains lacking CENH3 .', 'These results suggest , not only that centromeres evolve in gene-poor regions , but also how centromeres might evolve from single-copy to repetitive sequences .']
['plant biology', 'evolutionary biology', 'molecular biology', 'genetics and genomics']
A key centromere protein is found to bind discontinuously to subdomains of centromeres that are depleted in genes, suggesting that centromeres evolve in gene-poor regions.