Discus study shows unique chromosomes

[Lisachromis]

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/p ... ?news=2033

Scientists examining the chromosomes of three Discus species have found that two of the have features that were previously unseen in vertebrates.

The study, which is due to be published shortly in the journal Heredity, provides evidence to suggest that Symphysodon aequifasciatus and S. haraldi have "an intriguing meiotic chromosomal chain", which is the first ever seen in a fish or other vertebrate.

So, what do people make of that??

[Bas Pels]

meiotic chromosomal chain

I'm thinking meiotic refers to meisosis, the process during which 1 cell becomes 2 (cell deviding)

Chromosomes, the molecules which contain the genetic blueprints for all life, are duplicated during some of the first phases in meiosis, and than equallt devided over both doughter cells

chain can refer to a chain of events.

So, perhaps, meiotic chromosomal chain refers to an ounusual chain of events related to chromosome duplication in meiosis

But I guess it is a 10 to 1 guess

Anybody??

[Dean Hougen]

An intriguing meiotic chromosomal chain, with up to 20 elements during diplotene/diakinesis, was observed in S. aequifasciatus and S. haraldi, whereas S. discus only contains typical bivalent chromosomes.

This observation is unusual and we propose that the origin of meiotic multiples in males and females is based on a series of translocations that involved heterochromatic regions after hybridization of ancestor wild Discus species.

I'm pretty sure these sentences were generated by one of those random "scientific" paper generators, like this one http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/ except for biology rather than computer science.


Dean

[Lab]

meiotic chromosomal chain

I'm thinking meiotic refers to meisosis, the process during which 1 cell becomes 2 (cell deviding)

Actually what you describe here is called mitosis, Bas.

Meiosis is a reductional division usually related to the formation of gametes which are the units of sexual reproduction; eggs and sperm.

I don't know quite what to make of "meiotic chromosomal chain" either though...

Parts of the chromosome present in only one copy (n) instead of the usual two copys (2n)?