Amanda Larracuente Sequences the Genome’s Elusive Centromere

Researchers from the University of Rochester, along with their colleagues at the University of Connecticut, have now discovered the centromeres of the model genetic organism Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly), sequencing the most repetitive parts of genome and unlocking one of the “last frontiers of genome assembly,” says Amanda Larracuente, an assistant professor of biology at Rochester and co-lead author on the study. The research, published in the journal PloS Biology, sheds light on a fundamental aspect of biology, and shows that selfish genetic elements may play a larger role in centromere function than researchers previously thought.