Transcription of bovine satellite DNA by purified RNA polymerase III

Bovine satellite DNAs – a history of the evolution of complexity and its impact in the Bovidae family

“…In this repeat monomer, 12 highly conserved CpG sites were found (Kang et al 2001;Yamanaka et al 2011), and these seem to be highly methylated in most tissues (Schnedl et al 1976;Sturm & Taylor 1981;Pagés & Roizés 1982;Adams et al 1983). Additionally, it has been suggested that these satDNAs (like some others: Biscotti et al 2015;Chaves et al 2017) could be transcriptionally active (Su et al 1982), being transcribed by RNA polymerase III.…”

“…The analysis of bovine satDNAs has revealed the complex nucleotide structure for these sequences and suggested a dynamism that raises the hypothesis of these sequences being transcriptionally active (Streeck 1981;Su et al 1982, for the first time, that transcription of SATI may in fact occur in the cattle genome and although it was not proved yet, these sequences were already successfully demethylated (Hornsby et al 1992;Kang et al 2001;Yamanaka et al 2011). In recent years, numerous non-coding RNAs that originated from centromeric and pericentromeric satDNAs have been discovered (Bouzinba-Segard et al 2006;Pezer & Ugarković 2008;Carone et al 2009;Rošić et al 2014) and these seem to be very important for centromeric function, as alterations in their transcriptional status were related to chromosome segregation errors in several eukaryotic species.…”