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Centromeres of the yeast Komagataella phaffii (Pichia pastoris) have a simple inverted-repeat structure

Aisling Y. Coughlan, Sara J. Hanson, Kevin P. Byrne, View ORCID ProfileKenneth H. Wolfe
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/056382
Aisling Y. Coughlan
1UCD Conway Institute, School of Medicine, University College Dublin,Dublin 4,Ireland
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Sara J. Hanson
1UCD Conway Institute, School of Medicine, University College Dublin,Dublin 4,Ireland
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Kevin P. Byrne
1UCD Conway Institute, School of Medicine, University College Dublin,Dublin 4,Ireland
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Kenneth H. Wolfe
1UCD Conway Institute, School of Medicine, University College Dublin,Dublin 4,Ireland
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  • ORCID record for Kenneth H. Wolfe
  • For correspondence: kenneth.wolfe@ucd.ie
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Abstract

Centromere organization has evolved dramatically in one clade of fungi, the Saccharomycotina. These yeasts have lost the ability to make normal eukaryotic heterochromatin with histone H3K9 methylation, which is a major component of pericentromeric regions in other eukaryotes. Following this loss, several different types of centromere emerged, including two types of sequence-defined ("point") centromeres, and the epigenetically-defined "small regional" centromeres of Candida albicans. Here we report that centromeres of the methylotrophic yeast Komagataella phaffii (formerly called Pichia pastoris) are structurally-defined. Each of its four centromeres consists of a 2-kb inverted repeat (IR) flanking a 1-kb central core (mid) region. The four centromeres are unrelated in sequence. CenH3 (Cse4) binds strongly to the cores, with a decreasing gradient along the IRs. This mode of organization resembles Schizosaccharomyces pombe centromeres but is much more compact and lacks the extensive flanking heterochromatic otr repeats. Different isolates of K. phaffii show polymorphism for the orientation of the mid regions, due to recombination in the IRs. CEN4 is located within a 138-kb region that changes orientation during mating-type switching, but switching does not induce recombination of centromeric IRs. The existing genetic toolbox for K. phaffii should facilitate analysis of the relationship between the IRs and the establishment and maintenance of centromeres in this species.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted May 31, 2016.
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Centromeres of the yeast Komagataella phaffii (Pichia pastoris) have a simple inverted-repeat structure
Aisling Y. Coughlan, Sara J. Hanson, Kevin P. Byrne, Kenneth H. Wolfe
bioRxiv 056382; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/056382
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Centromeres of the yeast Komagataella phaffii (Pichia pastoris) have a simple inverted-repeat structure
Aisling Y. Coughlan, Sara J. Hanson, Kevin P. Byrne, Kenneth H. Wolfe
bioRxiv 056382; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/056382

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