Communications Biology (Dec 2020)

Unequal contribution of two paralogous CENH3 variants in cowpea centromere function

  • Takayoshi Ishii,
  • Martina Juranić,
  • Shamoni Maheshwari,
  • Fernanda de Oliveira Bustamante,
  • Maximilian Vogt,
  • Rigel Salinas-Gamboa,
  • Steven Dreissig,
  • Nial Gursanscky,
  • Tracy How,
  • Dmitri Demidov,
  • Joerg Fuchs,
  • Veit Schubert,
  • Andrew Spriggs,
  • Jean-Philippe Vielle-Calzada,
  • Luca Comai,
  • Anna M. G. Koltunow,
  • Andreas Houben

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-020-01507-x
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 3, no. 1
pp. 1 – 12

Abstract

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Takayoshi Ishii et al. report that two functional centromere-specific histone H3 (CENH3) paralogs with different centromere occupancy among different tissue types present in diploid cowpea. They demonstrate that CENH3.1 of cowpea is essential for normal plant growth and reproduction, while CENH3.2 is a gene likely to be undergoing early pseudogenization.