RT Journal
A1 Mercuri, Ludovica
A1 Palmisano, Donato
A1 L'Abbate, Alberto
A1 D'Addabbo, Pietro
A1 Montinaro, Francesco
A1 Catacchio, Claudia Rita
A1 Hasenfeld, Patrick
A1 Ventura, Mario
A1 Korbel, Jan O.
A1 Sanders, Ashley D.
A1 Maggiolini, Flavia Angela Maria
A1 Antonacci, Francesca
T1 A high-resolution map of small-scale inversions in the gibbon genome
JF Genome Research 
JO Genome Research 
YR 2022 
FD October 01 
VO 32 
IS 10 
SP 1941 
OP 1951 
DO 10.1101/gr.276960.122 
UL http://genome.cshlp.org/content/32/10/1941.abstract 
AB Gibbons are the most speciose family of living apes, characterized by a diverse chromosome number and rapid rate of large-scale rearrangements. Here we performed single-cell template strand sequencing (Strand-seq), molecular cytogenetics, and deep in silico analysis of a southern white-cheeked gibbon genome, providing the first comprehensive map of 238 previously hidden small-scale inversions. We determined that more than half are gibbon specific, at least fivefold higher than shown for other primate lineage-specific inversions, with a significantly high number of small heterozygous inversions, suggesting that accelerated evolution of inversions may have played a role in the high sympatric diversity of gibbons. Although the precise mechanisms underlying these inversions are not yet understood, it is clear that segmental duplication–mediated NAHR only accounts for a small fraction of events. Several genomic features, including gene density and repeat (e.g., LINE-1) content, might render these regions more break-prone and susceptible to inversion formation. In the attempt to characterize interspecific variation between southern and northern white-cheeked gibbons, we identify several large assembly errors in the current GGSC Nleu3.0/nomLeu3 reference genome comprising more than 49 megabases of DNA. Finally, we provide a list of 182 candidate genes potentially involved in gibbon diversification and speciation.