Genome Diversity in Maize

Abstract EN

Zea mays (maize) has historically been used as a model species for genetics, development, physiology and more recently, genome structure.

The maize genome is complex with striking intraspecific variation in gene order, repetitive DNA content, and allelic content exceeding the levels observed between primate species.

Maize genome complexity is primarily driven by polyploidization and explosive amplification of LTR retrotransposons, with the counteracting effect of unequal and illegitimate crossover.

Transposable elements have been shown to capture genic content, create chimeras, and amplify those sequences via transposition.

New sequencing platforms and hybridization-based strategies have appeared over the past decade which are being applied to maize and providing the first genome-wide comprehensive view of structural variation and will provide the basis for investigating the interplay between repeats and genes as well as the amount of species level diversity within maize.