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Updated: Aug 6, 2026

Micromanipulation of Chromosomes in Insect Spermatocytes
Published on: October 22, 2018
Near the edge of a chromosome's "black hole"
1Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA 98109-1024, USA. steveh@fhcrc.org
Abstract:
The inability of current technology to determine contiguous sequence for highly repetitive regions means that centromeres fall within multi-megabase gaps, analogous to black holes from which no information escapes. However, high-resolution mapping of a human X-centromere border reveals a remarkable structure, including a gradient of alpha-satellite divergence up to the edge of the youngest and most homogeneous repeats.
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