Fractionation, rearrangement and subgenome dominance

Abstract

Motivation: Fractionation is arguably the greatest cause of gene order disruption following whole genome duplication, causing severe biases in chromosome rearrangement-based estimates of evolutionary divergence. Results: We show how to correct for this bias almost entirely by means of a 'consolidation' algorithm for detecting and suitably transforming identifiable regions of fractionation. We characterize the process of fractionation and the performance of the algorithm through realistic simulations. We apply our method to a number of core eudicot genomes, we and by studying the fractionation regions detected, are able to address topical issues in polyploid evolution. © The Author(s) 2012. Published by Oxford University Press.