Examination of sequence homology between human chromosome 20 and the mouse genome: intense conservation of many genomic elements.

The conservation of genomic organization of mammalian species has been of interest for its usefulness in characterizing the genetics of traits and diseases and as one tool for examining evolution. The recent rough draft sequencing of the mouse and human genomes provides the opportunity for more detailed analyses. The current study examines the extent of homology between human chromosome 20 and the mouse genome by comparing putative coding and non-coding sequence to provide insight into organizational and sequence similarities between the species. The relative position of each of 460 putative coding orthologues was the same in both species, except for a single genomic segment rearrangement. The similarity extended to exon/intron structure, the size of introns, as well as strong evidence for the conservation of position of ancient LINE-1, LINE-2 and LTR repetitive sequence and the subtelomeric region of the long arm of human chromosome 20 and that of mouse chromosome 2. There was also evidence for conservation of a limited amount of non-coding single-copy sequence. Together these data provide additional insight into the extent of conservation of mammalian genomic organization and sequence.