Abstract
Three non-cross-hybridizing highly repetitive DNA components were studied in six whalebone and two toothed whale species. In one of the components, composition and repeat lengths have been preserved through the evolution of all cetaceans. Another component, primarily a whalebone whale characteristic, also has slow evolution. In the family Balaenopteridae the length of the repeat is about 420 bp. The component occurs in terminal chromosome positions. About half the component is composed of subrepeats having the motif TTAGGG, the same as has been described by other workers in the telomeres ofTrypanosoma brucei. Among the whalebone whales the third highly repetitive component was found only in the family Balaenopteridae. It is conceivably younger than the other two components. No common monomeric unit was identified, and the hybridization patterns were species specific, indicating that it evolves considerably faster than the other two components.
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