What are plant centromeres made of? How are they inherited, what proteins interact with them, and how do they evolve? What are centromeres? For over twelve years our lab has been working through the answers to these questions. By clicking on the sidebar you can find more details on our work and the people who work here

Publications

Du, Y., and Dawe, R.K. 2007. Maize NDC80 is a constitutive feature of the central kinetochore. Chromosome Res. In press

Phan B.H., Jin, W., Topp, C.N., Zhong, C.X., Jiang, J., Dawe R.K., and Parrott, W.A. 2007. Insertion of >100 kb centromeric repeat arrays into the rice genome by biolistic DNA transfer. Transgenic Res. 16:341-351

Dawe, R.K. and Henikoff S. 2006. Centromeres put epigenetics in the drivers seat. Trends Biochem. Sci. 31, 662-669

Topp, C.N., and Dawe,  R.K.  2006. Reinterpreting pericentromeric heterochromatin.  Curr. Opin. Plant Biol. 9, 647-653

Luce, A., Sharma, A., Mollere, O.S.B., Wolfgruber, T.K., Nagaki, K., Jiang, J., Presting, G.G., Dawe, R.K. 2006. Precise centromere mapping using a combination of repeat Junction markers and ChIP-PCR. Genetics 174: 1057–1061

Mroczek, R.J., Melo, J.R., Luce, A.C., Hiatt, E.N., and Dawe, R.K. 2006. The maize Ab10 meiotic drive system maps to supernumerary sequences in a large complex haplotype. Genetics 174: 145-154

Shi, J. and Dawe R.K. 2006. Partitioning of the maize epigenome by the number of methyl groups on histone H3 lysines 9 and 27. Genetics 173, 1571-1583

Dawe, R.K. 2005. Centromere renewal and replacement in the plant kingdom. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 102, 11573-11574

Jin, W., Lamb, J.C., Vega, J.M., Dawe, R.K., Birchler, J.A., and Jiang, J. 2005. Molecular and functional dissection of the maize B chromosome centromere. Plant Cell 17, 1412-1423

Dawe, R.K., Richardson, E.A, and Zhang, X. 2005. The simple ultrastructure of the maize kinetochore fits a two-domain model. Cytogenet. Genome Res. 109, 128-133

Zhang, X., Li, X., Marshall, J.B., Zhong, C.X., and Dawe, R.K. 2005. Phosphoserines on maize CENTROMERIC HISTONE H3 and histone H3 demarcate the centromere and pericentromere duringchromosome segregation. Plant Cell 17, 572-583

Dawe, R.K. 2004. RNA interference on chromosomes. Nat Genet. 36, 1141-1142

Topp, C.N., Zhong C.X., and Dawe, R.K. 2004. Centromere-encoded RNAs are integral components of the maize kinetochore. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 101, 15986-1599

Lawrence, C.J., Dawe, R.K., Christie, K.R., Cleveland, D.W., Dawson, S.C., Endow, S.A., Goldstein, L.S.B., Goodson, H.V., Hirokawa, N., Howard, J. Malmberg, R.L., McIntosh, J.R., Miki, H., Mitchison, T.J., Okada, Y., Reddy, A.S.N., Saxton, W.M., Schliwa, M., Scholey, J.M., Vale, R.D., Walczak, C.E., & Wordeman, L. 2004. A standardized kinesin nomenclature. J. Cell Biol. 167, 19-22

Dawe, R.K. and Hiatt, E.N. 2004. Plant neocentromeres: fast, focused and driven. Chromosome Res. 12, 655-669

Lawrence, C.J., Zmasek, C.M., Dawe, R.K., Malmberg, R.L. 2004. LumberJack: a heuristic tool for sequence alignment exploration and phylogenetic inference. Bioinformatics 20, 1977-1979

Jin. W., Melo, J.R., Nagaki, K., Talbert, P.B., Henikoff, S., Dawe, R.K., and Jiang, J. 2004. Maize centromeres: fine structure and functional adaptation in the genetic background of oat. Plant Cell 16, 571-581

Jiang, J., Birchler, J.A., Parrott, W.A. and Dawe, R.K. 2003. A molecular view of plant centromeres. Trends Plant Sci. 8, 570-575

Mroczek, R. J., and Dawe, R.K. 2003. Distribution of retroelements in centromeres and neocentromeres of maize. Genetics 165, 809-819

Birchler, J.A., Dawe, R. K., Doebley, J.F. 2003. Marcus Rhoades, Preferential Segregation and Meiotic Drive. Genetics 164, 835-841

Hiatt, E.N. and Dawe, R.K. 2003. Four loci on Abnormal chromosome 10 contribute to meiotic drive in maize. Genetics 164, 699-709

Nagaki, K., Talbert, P.B., Zhong, C.X. , Dawe R.K., Henikoff. S., and Jiang. J. 2003. Chromatin immunoprecipitation reveals that the 180-bp satellite repeat is the key functional DNA element of Arabidopsis thaliana centromeres. Genetics 163, 1221-1225

Nagaki, K., Song, J., Stupar, R., Parokonny, A.S., Yuan Q., Ouyang S., Liu J., Dawe, R.K., Buell C.R., and Jiang, J. 2003. Molecular and cytological analyses of large tracks of centromeric DNA reveal the structure and evolutionary dynamics of maize centromeres. Genetics 163, 759-770

Hiatt, E.N. and Dawe, R.K. 2003. The meiotic drive system on maize abnormal chromosome 10 contains few essential genes. Genetica 117, 67-76

Dawe, R.K. 2003. RNA interference, transposons, and the centromere. Plant Cell 15, 297-301

Zhong C.X., Marshall J.B., Topp, C. Mroczek R.J. , Kato, C.R.A, Nagaki, K., Birchler, J.A., Jiang, J., and Dawe, R.K. 2002. Centromeric retroelements and satellites interact with maize kinetochore protein CENH3. Plant Cell 14, 2825-2836

Hiatt, E.N., Kentner, E., and Dawe, R.K. 2002. Independently-regulated neocentromere activity of two classes of tandem repeat arrays. Plant Cell 14, 407-420

Lawrence, C.J., Malmberg, R.L., Muszynski, M.G., and Dawe, R.K. 2002. Maximum likelihood methods reveal conservation of function among closely related kinesin families. J. Mol. Evol. 54, 42-53

Lawrence, C.J, Morris, N.R., Meagher, R.B., and Dawe, R.K. 2001. Dyneins have run their course in the plant lineage. Traffic 2, 362-363

Yu, H.-G., Hiatt, E. N., and Dawe. 2000. The plant kinetochore. Trends Plant Sci. 5, 543-547

Yu, H.-G. and Dawe, R. K. 2000. Functional redundancy in the maize meiotic kinetochore. J. Cell Biol. 151, 131-141

Dawe, R. K., Reed, L. M., Yu, H.-G., Muszynski, M.G., and Hiatt, E.N. 1999. A maize homolog of mammalian CENP-C is a constitutive component of the inner kinetochore. Plant Cell 11, 1227-1238

Yu, H.-G., Muszynski, M. G., and Dawe, R. K. 1999. The maize homolog of the cell cycle checkpoint protein MAD2 reveals kinetochore substructure and contrasting mitotic and meiotic localization patterns. J. Cell Biol. 145, 425-435

Buckler, E.S. IV, Phelps, T.L. Keith Buckler C.S., Dawe, R.K. Doebley, J.F. and Holtsford, T.P. 1999. Meiotic drive of knobs reshaped the maize genome. Genetics 153, 415-426

Dawe, R. K. 1998. Meiotic chromosome organization and segregation in plants. Ann. Rev. Plant Phys. Plant Mol. Biol. 49, 371-395

Richards, E. J. and Dawe, R. K. 1998. Plant centromeres: structure, function and control. Curr. Opin. Plant Biol. 1, 130-135

Yu, H-G., Hiatt, E. N., Chan, A., Sweeney, M., and Dawe, R. K. 1997. Neocentromere-mediated chromosome movement in maize. J. Cell Biol. 139, 831-840

Dawe, R.K. and Cande, W.Z. 1996. Induction of centromeric activity in maize by Suppressor of meiotic drive 1. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci (USA) 93, 8512-8517

Dawe, R. K., Sedat, J. W., Agard, D. A., and Cande, W. Z. 1994. Chromosome synapsis in maize is associated with a novel chromatin organization. Cell 76:901-912