Structural and Functional Characterization of a Centromeric Highly Repetitive DNA Sequence of Fringilla coelebsL. (Aves: Passeriformes)

A highly repetitive centromeric Fringilla coelebs PstI (FCP) element was cloned and sequenced. The FCP tandem repeats with a unit length 505 or 506 accounted for about 0.9% of the entire genome and had 57% GC. Direct genomic sequencing with FCP-specific primers and ThermoFidelase 2A revealed the consensus sequence and the five most common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for the FCP unit. FCP may be transcribed and may play a role in the spatial arrangement of the genome.