High-resolution mapping and transcriptional activity analysis of chicken CENP-A-associated DNA sequences on giant lampbrush chromosomes

Exploration into morphofunctional organisation of centromere DNA sequences is important for understanding the mechanisms of kinetochore specification and assembly. In-depth epigenetic analysis of DNA fragments associated with centromeric nucleosome proteins has demonstrated unique features of centromere organisation in chicken karyotype: there are both mature centromeres, which comprise chromosome-specific homogeneous arrays of tandem repeats, and recently evolved primitive centromeres, which consist of non-tandemly organised DNA sequences. In this work, we describe the arrangement and transcriptional activity of chicken centromere repeats for Cen1, Cen2, Cen3, Cen4, Cen7, Cen8, and Cen11 and nonrepetitive centromere sequences of chromosomes 5, 27, and Z using highly elongated lampbrush chromosomes, which are characteristic of the diplotene stage of oogenesis. The degree of chromatin packaging and fine spatial organisations of tandemly repetitive and non-tandemly repetitive centromeric sequences significantly differ at the lampbrush stage. Using DNA/RNA FISH, we have demonstrated that during the lampbrush stage, DNA sequences are transcribed within the centromere regions of chromosomes that lack centromere-specific tandem repeats. In contrast, chromosome-specific centromeric repeats Cen1, Cen2, Cen3, Cen4, Cen7, Cen8, and Cen11 do not demonstrate any transcriptional activity during the lampbrush stage. In addition, we found that CNM repeat cluster localises adjacent to non-repetitive centromeric sequences in chicken microchromosome 27 indicating that centromere region in this chromosome is repeatrich. Cross-species FISH allowed localisation of the sequences homologous to centromeric DNA of chicken chromosomes 5 and 27 in centromere regions of quail orthologous chromosomes.