Satellitome Analysis of the Pacific Oyster Crassostrea gigas Reveals New Pattern of Satellite DNA Organization, Highly Scattered across the Genome

Several features already qualified the invasive bivalve species Crassostrea gigas as a valuable non-standard model organism in genome research. C. gigas is characterized by the low contribution of satellite DNAs (satDNAs) vs. mobile elements and has an extremely low amount of heterochromatin, predom...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International Journal of Molecular Sciences
Main Authors: Monika Tunjić-Cvitanić, Juan J. Pasantes, Daniel García-Souto, Tonči Cvitanić, Miroslav Plohl, Eva Šatović-Vukšić
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2021
Subjects:
satellite DNA
satellitome
mobile element
Helitron
bivalve
Crassostrea gigas
Biology (General)
QH301-705.5
Chemistry
QD1-999
Pacific
Pacific oyster
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms22136798
https://doaj.org/article/d90c154daea4487296e8b8e960d39656
Description
Summary:Several features already qualified the invasive bivalve species Crassostrea gigas as a valuable non-standard model organism in genome research. C. gigas is characterized by the low contribution of satellite DNAs (satDNAs) vs. mobile elements and has an extremely low amount of heterochromatin, predominantly built of DNA transposons. In this work, we have identified 52 satDNAs composing the satellitome of C. gigas and constituting about 6.33% of the genome. Satellitome analysis reveals unusual, highly scattered organization of relatively short satDNA arrays across the whole genome. However, peculiar chromosomal distribution and densities are specific for each satDNA. The inspection of the organizational forms of the 11 most abundant satDNAs shows association with constitutive parts of Helitron mobile elements. Nine of the inspected satDNAs are dominantly found in mobile element-associated form, two mostly appear standalone, and only one is present exclusively as Helitron-associated sequence. The Helitron-related satDNAs appear in more chromosomes than other satDNAs, indicating that these mobile elements could be leading satDNA propagation in C. gigas. No significant accumulation of satDNAs on certain chromosomal positions was detected in C. gigas , thus establishing a novel pattern of satDNA organization on the genome level.

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