Organization of the Euplotes crassus micronuclear genome

Euplotes crassus, like other hypotrichous ciliated protozoa, eliminates most of its micronuclear chromosomal DNA in the process of forming the small linear DNA molecules that comprise the macronuclear genome. By characterizing randomly selected lambda phage clones of E. crassus micronuclear DNA, we have determined the distribution of repetitive and unique sequences and the arrangement of macronuclear genes relative to eliminated DNA. This allows us to compare the E. crassus micronuclear genome organization to that of another distantly related hypotrichous ciliate, Oxytricha nova. The clones from E. crassus segregate into three prevalent classes: those containing primarily eliminated repetitive DNA (Class I); those containing macronuclear genes in addition to repetitive sequences (Class II); and those containing only eliminated unique sequence DNA (Class III). All of the repetitive sequences in these clones belong to the same highly abundant repetitive element family. Our results demonstrate that the sequence organization of the E. crassus and O. nova micronuclear genomes is related in that the macronuclear genes are clustered together in the micronuclear genome and the eliminated unique sequences occur in long stretches that are uninterrupted by repetitive sequences. In both organisms a single repetitive element family comprises the majority of the eliminated interspersed middle repetitive DNA and appears to be preferentially associated with the macronuclear sequence clusters. The similarities in the sequence organization in these two organisms suggest that clustering of macronuclear genes plays a role in the chromosome fragmentation process.