Plant Centromere Biology is dedicated to plant centromere research. Chapters cover the structure of centromeres from several plant species including Arabidopsis thaliana, rice, maize, wheat and beet, while other sections cover several unique characteristics associated with plant centromeres, including classical and modern neocentromeres, centromere drive and centromere misdivision.  Additional chapters are dedicated to epigenetic modification and evolution of plant centromeres, and development and application of plant artificial chromosomes.

Written by an international group of experts in the field, PlantCentromere Biology is a valuable handbook for all plant scientists working on plant genome research.  Beyond the bench, it can also serve as a helpful reference tool or textbook for upper level college classes on cytogenetics or genome analysis.

Jiming Jiang is a Professor of Horticulture at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His research focuses on plant molecular cytogenetics, plant centromeres, potato breeding and genomics. In addition to his research activities Dr. Jiang also teaches a course on introductory cytogenetics, and he is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

James A. Birchler is Curators Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia. His lab studies gene expression in multicellular eukaryotes at the gene and chromosomal level, using maize and Drosophila as experimental organisms. Dr. Birchler has published widely in such journals as The New Phytologist, The Plant Cell, and Genes and Chromatin, and he is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Contributors vii

Preface ix

Chapter 1 Arabidopsis Centromeres 3
Minoru Murata

Chapter 2 Rice Centromeres 15
Jiming Jiang

Chapter 3 Maize Centromeres 25
Gernot Presting

Chapter 4 A Molecular Cytogenetic Analysis of the Structure, Evolution, and Epigenetic Modifi cations of Major DNA Sequences in Centromeres of Beta Species 39
Falk Zakrzewski, Beatrice Weber, and Thomas Schmidt

Chapter 5 Centromere Synteny among Brachypodium, Wheat, and Rice 57
Lili Qi, Bernd Friebe, and Bikram S. Gill

Chapter 6 CENH3 for Establishing and Maintaining Centromeres 67
Inna Lermontova and Ingo Schubert

Chapter 7 Holokinetic Centromeres 83
Stefan Heckmann and Andreas Houben

Chapter 8 Is the Heterochromatin of Meiotic Neocentromeres a Remnant of the Early Evolution of the Primitive Centromere? 95
María J. Puertas and Alfredo Villasante

Chapter 9 Misdivision of Centromeres 111
Adam J. Lukaszewski

Chapter 10 Female Meiotic Drive in Monkeyfl owers: Insight into the Population Genetics of Selfi sh Centromeres 129
Lila Fishman

Chapter 11 Plant Centromere Epigenetics 147
Ryan N. Douglas and James A. Birchler

Chapter 12 Centromere Evolution 159
Jiming Jiang

Chapter 13 Centromere-Mediated Generation of Haploid Plants 169
Maruthachalam Ravi and Simon W.-L. Chan

Chapter 14 Engineered Plant Chromosomes 183
Robert T. Gaeta and James A. Birchler

Index 193

Color plate is located between pages 182 and 183