Reconstruction and evolutionary history of eutherian chromosomes

Determining the order and orientation of conserved chromosome segments in the genomes of extant mammals is important for understanding speciation events, and the lineage-specific adaptations that have occurred during ∼200 My of mammalian evolution. In this paper, we describe the computational reconstruction of chromosome organization for seven ancestral genomes leading to human, including the ancestor of all placental mammals. The evolutionary history of chromosome rearrangements that occurred from the time of the eutherian ancestor until the human lineage is revealed in detail. Our results provide an evolutionary basis for comparison of genome organization of all eutherians, and for revealing the genomic origins of lineage-specific adaptations.