23 September 2026
Piotr Włodzimierz, Estela Perez-Roman, Jacob Gonzalez Isa, Michael Hong, Meng Zhang, Ludmila Oliveira, Katharine Jenike, Robin Burns, Pio Sierra, Matthias Heuberger, Chenxi Zhou, Sagarika Koppera, Mia Becker, Nicola Gorringe, Petr Novak, Yennifer Mata-Sucre, Giulio Formenti, Felipe Karam Teixeira, Ines Anna Drinnenberg, Ioannis Kontoyiannis, Kamil Jaron, Marcela Uilano-Silva, André Marques, Jiří Macas, Mark Blaxter, Richard Durbin, Tree of Life Consortium, Alexandros Bousios, Ian R Henderson - 2026
Centromeres evolved at the root of eukaryotes to segregate chromosomes during cell division1–4. Despite their ancient origin, centromeric DNA sequences evolve rapidly and adopt diverse architectures, including point centromeres, satellite arrays, transposon clusters, and holocentrics2,5–12. To analyse centromere evolution at a broad scale, we characterised architectures across 325 diverse Darwin Tree of Life genome assemblies13. Centromere architecture is evolutionarily labile, and similar configurations arise independently across divergent lineages. In plants and animals, we modelled centromere evolution as a recurrent cycle, in which satellite- and transposon-based architectures interconvert, with independent origins of holocentricity. We curated >23 million satellite repeats comprising 263 families from 165 species. Despite sequence divergence between satellite families, higher order repeats are prevalent, indicating constraint on repeat architecture rather than primary sequence. Satellite arrays are heavily invaded by diverse transposon families, consistent with convergent adaptation to the centromeric niche. In 89 species, transposons themselves constitute the primary centromere structure. We observed centrophilic transposons forming tandem arrays, suggesting mechanisms for satellite regeneration. Our sample includes five independent origins of holocentricity in plants and animals, which vary in association with periodic satellite arrays. We propose that genetic instability, centrophilic transposition, and transmission distortion promote recurrent centromere architectural interconversions during evolution.
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