Sunkel C E, Coelho P A
Laboratório de Genética Molecular, Centro de Citologia Experimental, Porto, Portugal.
Curr Opin Genet Dev. 1995 Dec;5(6):756-67. doi: 10.1016/0959-437x(95)80008-s.
The centromere is an essential cis-acting structure present in the chromosomes of all eukaryotes, central to the mechanism that ensures proper segregation during meiosis and mitosis. Molecular characterization of centromeres in the budding and fission yeasts has advanced significantly over the last few years due to their relatively small size and the availability of functional assays. However, identification and characterization of centromeric sequences from multicellular organisms has proven to be slow and difficult in the absence of direct functional tests. Molecular data have recently become available on the centromere of Drosophila, making it possible to bridge a long-standing gap in our knowledge on the general structure of centromeres. An evaluation of the available data from yeast to man suggests that centromere sequence and centromere sequence organization have diverged significantly, even amongst different chromosomes of a single organism; however, overall centromere organization and kinetochore components might be significantly more conserved than thought previously.
着丝粒是所有真核生物染色体中存在的一种必需的顺式作用结构，对于确保减数分裂和有丝分裂期间正确分离的机制至关重要。由于芽殖酵母和裂殖酵母的着丝粒相对较小且有功能分析方法可用，在过去几年中，它们着丝粒的分子特征研究取得了显著进展。然而，在缺乏直接功能测试的情况下，从多细胞生物中鉴定和表征着丝粒序列已被证明进展缓慢且困难重重。最近有关果蝇着丝粒的分子数据已经可得，这使得弥补我们在着丝粒一般结构知识上长期存在的空白成为可能。对从酵母到人类的现有数据进行评估表明，即使在单个生物体的不同染色体之间，着丝粒序列和着丝粒序列组织也有显著差异；然而，着丝粒的整体组织和动粒组件可能比之前认为的更加保守。
