Comparative Genome Mapping
Comparative Genome Mapping
Often the clones used to identify RFLPs in one species can be used in a second species. These heterologous probes can then be ued to develop a RFLP map in the second species. Once the two species have been mapped, the relative evolution of the two species can be compared. Comparative mapping can identify inversions, translocation and duplications that have occurred. Genetic factors can also be assessed by comparing map distances of genes with conserved gene order in the two species.
A comparison of the related grass species sorghum and maize was made using maize clones (Whitkus et al., Genetics, 132:1119, 1992). The diploid chromosome number of the two species is twelve. Many of the sorghum chromosomes contained regions from two of the maize chromosomes. This result may represent the ancestral duplication of chromosomal material. Furthermore, during maize evolution duplicate genes have also occurred to a greater extent than that seen in sorghum. Only nine inversions of gene order have been observed between the species. Maize and sorghum were next compared with regard to genetic distance. Conserved gene orders were compared, and these linkages measured 862 cM in maize and 835 cM in sorghum. Therefore, it can be concluded that since the divergence of sorghum and maize, large chromosomal changes have not occurred and much of the recombination distance has been maintained.
The same type of analysis was performed with two more distant species, tomato and pepper (Tanksley et al. PNAS 85:6419, 1988). Little linkage conservation appears to have been maintained since the divergence of these two species, even though the chromosome number has been conserved. The largest conserved linkage block is a 63 cM block of tomato chromosome two that was located on chromosome I of pepper. Some chromosomes of pepper contained six distinct regions of the tomato genome (pepper chromosome X). These chromosomal breakages and rearrangements are not centromeric in nature, suggesting that evolution involved breakage throughout the genome. Because duplicated regions were found in pepper, it was concluded that the gene duplications events within pepper occurred after divergence from tomato. Linkage distances of conserved gene orders were quite similar, though (229 cM in pepper vs. 172 cM in tomato).
Copyright © 1998. Phillip McClean