Isolation and Identification of a Functional Centromere Element in the Wild Rice Species Oryza granulata with the GG Genome

The centromere of eukaryotic chromosomes is the crucial locus responsible for sister chromatid cohesion and for correct segregation of chromosomes to daughter cells during cell division. In the structural genomics era, centromeres represent the last frontiers of higher eukaryotic genomes because of their densely methylated, highly repetitive and, heterochromatic DNA （Hall et al., 2004）. Although these functions are conserved among all eukaryotes, centromeric DNA sequences are evolving rapidly （Jiang et al., 2003）.