Sequence and analysis of chromosome 2 of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana.
Lin, Xiaoying *; Kaul, Samir *; Rounsley, Steve +; Shea, Terrance P. +; Benito, Maria-Ines; Town, Christopher D.; Fujii, Claire Y.; Mason, Tanya; Bowman, Cheryl L.; Barnstead, Mary; Feldblyum, Tamara V.; Buell, C. Robin; Ketchum, Karen A.; Lee, John; Ronning, Catherine M.; Koo, Hean L.; Moffat, Kelly S.; Cronin, Lisa A.; Shen, Mian; Pai, Grace; Van Aken, Susan; Umayam, Lowell; Tallon, Luke J.; Gill, John E.; Adams, Mark D. +; Carrera, Ana J.; Creasy, Todd H.; Goodman, Howard M. +; Somerville, Chris R. +; Copenhaver, Greg P. +; Preuss, Daphne +; Nierman, William C.; White, Owen; Eisen, Jonathan A.; Salzberg, Steven L.; Fraser, Claire M.; Venter, J. Craig +
[Article] Nature. 402(6763):761-768, December 16, 1999.

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Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis) is unique among plant model organisms in having a small genome (130-140 Mb), excellent physical and genetic maps, and little repetitive DNA. Here we report the sequence of chromosome 2 from the Columbia ecotype in two gap-free assemblies (contigs) of 3.6 and 16 megabases (Mb). The latter represents the longest published stretch of uninterrupted DNA sequence assembled from any organism to date. Chromosome 2 represents 15% of the genome and encodes 4,037 genes, 49% of which have no predicted function. Roughly 250 tandem gene duplications were found in addition to large-scale duplications of about 0.5 and 4.5 Mb between chromosomes 2 and 1 and between chromosomes 2 and 4, respectively. Sequencing of nearly 2 Mb within the genetically defined centromere revealed a low density of recognizable genes, and a high density and diverse range of vestigial and presumably inactive mobile elements. More unexpected is what appears to be a recent insertion of a continuous stretch of 75% of the mitochondrial genome into chromosome 2.

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