BACKGROUND
integrated genome maps became a powerful tool to fill the gaps generated by the low resolution of linkage mapping and the problems of genome sequencing and assembly, providing a more accurate scenario of the genome structure.
the application of fluorescent in situ hybridization  based in the use of bacterial artificial chromosome  clones as probes represents an efficient approach to anchor genomic and linkage data on physical chromosomes.
bac libraries have been explored for many aspects of molecular and genomic studies, such as the positional cloning of genes  <cit> , comparative studies of synteny and gene organization among different species  <cit> , as well as for local or whole genome physical and genetic mapping and sequencing  <cit> .
in cytogenetic research and chromosome mapping, the potential of bacs for animal genome analyses has improved, since several good quality genomes are already available in public databases  <cit>  bringing up the possibility to refine the chromosome analysis under the focus of bac-fish mapping  <cit> .
cichlid fishes represent a monophyletic group classified in  <dig> subfamilies: etroplinae , ptychochrominae , cichlinae  and pseudocrenilabrinae   <cit> .
although african pseudocrenilabrinae cichlids can be separated in three major groups , these groups are not recognized as valid taxonomic units  <cit> .
the african groups of lakes victoria, malawi and tanganika represent a classical example of extensive and rapid radiation and therefore are highly interesting for evolutionary biology analyses  <cit> .
the karyotypes of more than  <dig> cichlid species have been determined, evidencing a diploid chromosome number ranging from 2n =  <dig> to 2n =  <dig>  african cichlids have a modal diploid chromosome number of  <dig> chromosomes whereas the neotropical cichlids contain 2n =  <dig> chromosomes reviewed by  <cit> .
genetic maps containing a few hundred polymorphic markers provide a starting point in order to resolve the chromosomal location of cloned genes or markers.
genetic linkage maps have been developed for a number of fish species, including zebrafish  <cit> , medaka  <cit> , catfish  <cit> , rainbow trout  <cit> , atlantic salmon  <cit> , and also cichlids as the nile tilapia oreochromis niloticus   <cit> , lake malawi haplochromines  <cit> , and astatotilapia burtoni <cit> .
there are also other genetic/genomic resources for cichlids including extensive collections of expressed sequence tags  for lake victoria haplochromines  <cit> , a. burtoni <cit> , and o. niloticus <cit> , bac libraries for nile tilapia  <cit> , and haplochromines from lakes malawi  <cit> , victoria  <cit> , and tanganika  <cit> , and a high-resolution map for nile tilapia  <cit> .
altogether, these genomic resources have driven the investigation of several aspects of cichlid’s biology, including sex determination  <cit> .
tilapiines have an xy sex chromosome system on linkage group   <dig> or a zw system on lg <dig>  <cit> .
however, at least two distinct genetic sex determination systems in the lake malawi cichlids were found: a xy sex-determination system on lg <dig> and a zw system on lg <dig>  <cit> .
furthermore, some genes observed in lg <dig>  cyp19a and wt <dig>  are involved in the sexual differentiation of mammals  <cit> ; the clcn <dig> gene , located on lg <dig>  turns to be interesting since it was detected in the human x chromosome  <cit> ; the opsin genes responsible for the color-spectrum vision of cichlids and thus involved with sexual selection and adaptation to new environments are located in lg <dig>  <cit> .
additionally, the genome of o. niloticus has been recently sequenced  <cit> , leading to the opportunity to integrate nucleotide sequence information and other genetic data.
in this context, we address the comparative analysis of lg <dig>   <dig>   <dig>  and  <dig> of cichlids based on the integration of genomic and molecular cytogenetic.
furthermore, the combined genomic/cytogenetic information obtained for cichlids was also comparatively analyzed with other vertebrates.
our results provide evidence for extensive synteny conservation of segments among pseudocrenilabrinae cichlids and also between cichlids and other vertebrates.
such information is promising in the establishment of a framework for additional genome-wide studies.
RESULTS
bac-fish mapping
the chromosome diploid number and morphology were analyzed in giemsa-stained metaphases .
such analysis confirmed the previous karyotype data available for cichlids composed of meta and submetacentric , and telo/acrocentric  chromosomes  <cit> .
metaphases of males and females of o. niloticus  were used to set up the bac-fish mapping experiments .
after that, a comparative mapping, including eight other pseudocrenilabrinae species, was carried out to elucidate the evolutionary history of chromosomes carrying lg <dig>   <dig>   <dig>  and  <dig> .
2n, diploid chromosome number; m/sm, metacentric/submetacentric; t/a, telocentric/acrocentric; micro, microchromosomes; m/f, males/females; ns, not identified sex.
four bacs from lg <dig> mapped on the long arm of a small t/a chromosome pair of o. niloticus .
the largest chromosome of o. niloticus evidenced labeling signals of eight bacs of lg <dig>  and the lg <dig> mapping confirmed the presence of a lot of repetitive dna in the end of the largest chromosome of all analyzed species .
three bacs from lg <dig> mapped on a medium t/a chromosome different from that containing the lg <dig> , and three bacs from lg <dig> mapped on the second largest pair of o. niloticus .
no differences were found between males and females for any of the hybridized bac-probes.
at least two individuals of each species were used in bac-fish experiments and the signal patterns observed for lg <dig>   <dig>   <dig>  and  <dig> were conserved in number and position when compared to the reference species o. niloticus .
no results were obtained for bacs of lg <dig> in labeotropheus trewavasae due to the low quality chromosome preparations of this species for fish procedures .
in south american cichlids , none of the bac probes produced identifiable chromosomal signals.
furthermore, no hybridization signal was observed in the asian etroplinae species, etroplus maculatus.
besides the conservation of the studied lgs, some differences were observed in the chromosomes’ morphology of the species : astatotilapia burtoni showed a different pattern for lg <dig> which is located on the short arm of a large m/sm chromosome instead of a smal t/a chromosome as observed in the other cichlids.
the single bac signal observed in the short arms of the chromosomes was related to repeated sequences as observed for the unh <dig> marker in lg <dig> of metriaclima lombardoi .
additionally, small variations in the chromosomal position of the markers were also observed , but these could be just a consequence of variation in the chromosome condensation of the analyzed individuals.
the chromosomal positions of all selected bacs were correlated with their corresponding order on their linkage maps.
this enabled the association of lgs with chromosomes and to orientate their position according to the short/long arm of the corresponding chromosomes.
using the convention that the short arm is north oriented to and the long arm is south oriented, the north/south orientation of the current oreochromis lg <dig> matches with the short/long arm ; however, the orientation of lg <dig>   <dig>  and  <dig> should be inverted in relation to the order of previously published molecular markers .
in silico comparative analyses
comparative genomic analyzes of lg <dig> at bouillabase genome browser suggested a conserved pattern of these markers in medaka chromosome  <dig>  stickleback chromosome  <dig>  and pufferfish chromosome  <dig>  .
additionally, using ensembl and genomicus databases, the chromosomal position of the genes wt1b and cyp19a <dig>  mapped in lg <dig>  was comparatively analyzed among fishes and also other vertebrates .
the present analyses showed that wt1b and cyp19a <dig> genes are located at chromosome  <dig> of danio rerio   and separated by 6mb.
in medaka and pufferfish, these genes are separated by 10mb and 5mb, respectively .
a divergent scenario occur in other vertebrates, in which these genes appear in different chromosomes as observed in chicken and primates, where both markers are in chromosomes  <dig> and  <dig>  and chromosomes  <dig> and  <dig>  respectively .
nid, not identified scaffold in o. niloticus; ns, no similarity; chr, chromosome; chrun, unidentified chromosome.
lg <dig> proved to be conserved with at least two correspondent markers between the fish species medaka  and stickleback .
in the pufferfish genome, markers of lg <dig> mapped at a non identified region .
despite the synteny of lg <dig> markers identified in medaka and stickleback, an inversion of the markers unh <dig> and unh <dig>  separeted by  <dig> mb, was detected in medaka in relation to oreochromis .
lg <dig> contains few known genes that could be used for comparative analyses in other vertebrates.
clcn <dig> was the only gene identified in other vertebrates.
using clcn <dig> in a comparative analysis against the zebrafish genome, this gene appears duplicated and located at chromosomes  <dig> and  <dig>  on the other hand, in all mammal species, clcn <dig> has been conserved in x chromosome .
the majority of lg <dig> markers corresponds to chromosome  <dig> in medaka, chromosome  <dig> in stickleback, and chromosome  <dig> in pufferfish.
although other lg <dig> markers  were found in stickleback and medaka genome, it was not possible to categorize their chromosome position .
the position of the mme gene differs, as it can appear in chromosome  <dig>   <dig>  or  <dig>  respectively, in the three mentioned species  .
with the addition of zebrafish in ensembl datasheet, an extremely conserved pattern of lg <dig> in chromosome  <dig> was evidenced.
once more, a duplicated marker was found in zebrafish .
genes observed in lg <dig>  have their positions conserved in chromosome  <dig> of primates.
additionally, this conservation is also related to horse chromosome  <dig>  mouse chromosome  <dig>  chicken chromosome  <dig>  and turkey chromosome  <dig> .
despite located in the same chromosome, the position of these genes are inconsistent - in o. niloticus these genes appear tight together at  <dig> cm; however, in other species they appear separated, sometimes around 70mb apart .
the opn gene , present in the end of o. niloticus lg <dig>  matched in the x chromosome for all analyzed mammals .
analysis of lg <dig> markers in bouillabase showed a block of synteny between oreochromis, stickleback chromosome  <dig> and pufferfish chromosome  <dig>  even taking into account that the distances between these markers are similar among the species.
in medaka genome, only the unh <dig> marker was identified in chromosome  <dig> .
it was impossible to identify the position of the igfbp <dig> marker in medaka and stickleback genomes, but in pufferfish it is located together with dusp <dig> , as also observed for o. niloticus .
in ensembl comparative studies, the analysis of a small region  of lg <dig> that contains the genes rerg, kcne1l, dusp <dig>  and igfbp <dig>  revealed a conserved position of rerg and dusp <dig> at the same chromosome in vertebrates: homo sapiens chromosome  <dig>  macaca mulatta chromosome  <dig>  bos taurus chromosome  <dig>  gallus gallus and meleagris gallopavo chromosome  <dig>  and indeed in the reptile anolis carolinensis chromosome  <dig>  however, these genes are separated by  <dig> to  <dig> mb  in non-fish species .
moreover, the gene kcne1l was conserved in the x chromosome of all mammals .
discussion
cytogenetic mapping and chromosome stability in pseudocrenilabrinae
the most important find in our study is the extreme chromosome conservation observed within african cichlids.
it is already known that african cichlids  comprise about  <dig>  species  <cit>  and that their modal chromosome number is 2n =  <dig>  <cit> .
extensive comparative mapping has demonstrated that the genetic maps for tilapia and malawi cichlids are almost perfectly collinear  <cit> .
this conservation could be evidenced through comparative physical chromosomal mapping of linkage groups as shown in the present study.
on the other hand, variability at the cytogenetic level among cichlids was mostly observed based in repetitive dna chromosome mapping  <cit>  and seems to reflect the evolutionary dynamics of the repetitive genomic fraction and not broad processes acting in the whole karyotype.
within pseudocrenilabrinae, the major karyotype feature in the tilapiines is the presence of one large t/a chromosome pair , which is significantly larger than all other elements of the karyotype  <cit> .
on the other hand, the haplochromine and hemichromine cichlids have shown two outstanding chromosome pairs  <cit>  - the first and the second largest elements that correspond to lg <dig> and lg <dig>  respectively .
the chromosome mapping of lg <dig> and lg <dig> markers  in pseudocrenilabrinae species confirms the proposed homology between the two largest chromosome pairs of tilapiines and haplochromines/hemichromines  <cit> .
however, the hypothesis concerning an independent chromosome fusion that originated the largest chromosomes in tilapiines and haplochromines  <cit>  is not in agreement with the results observed for the cytogenetic mapping of lg <dig> and lg <dig> markers.
it is known that the largest chromosome pair of o. niloticus originated by a centric fusion event of three other pairs of the ancestral cichlid karyotype composed of  <dig> acrocentric chromosomes  <cit> .
a previous study  <cit>  proposed that a first chromosome fusion took place before the divergence of the main east african cichlid groups.
the second chromosome fusion occurred independently in the tilapiines and non-tilapiines.
in the tilapiines, a new chromosome was fused to the largest pair, and in the non-tilapiines, the second fusion did not involve the largest chromosome, but two other chromosomes, which gave rise to the chromosome pair  <dig>  however, when we compared the distribution of bac signals  through the long arm of the two largest chromosomes in tilapiines and non-tilapiines species, we detected that the second chromosome fusion seems to be identical in these two groups, producing a chromosome with the same genomic content that remained conserved in all pseudocrenilabrinae species so far analyzed .
the differences observed in the chromosome size of the first pair between tilapiines and haplochromines could be due to the intense dynamics of repeated dnas located in the entire long arm instead of differences related to possible chromosome fusions.
a range of studies has shown that the largest chromosome in o. niloticus presents a great amount of heterochromatin, microsatellites, transposable elements, lines and sines, and non-ltr retrotransposons  <cit> .
the positive results using lg3-bacs  evidenced the accumulation of repeated dnas in the lg <dig> chromosome of all pseudocrenilabrinae, specially in tilapiine species.
+: presence of repetitive dnas.
despite displaying a highly conserved karyotype structure, many events of duplication, inversion, and fusion occurred during the diversification of african cichlids and resulted in diploid chromosome numbers divergent from the pattern of  <dig> chromosomes, as observed in tilapia mariae with 2n =  <dig>  <cit> , t. sparrmanii with 2n =  <dig>  <cit> , oreochromis alcalicus with 2n =  <dig>  <cit> , o. karongae with 2n =  <dig>  <cit> , and astatotilapia burtoni with 2n =  <dig>  <cit> , among others.
a. burtoni has two metacentric chromosome pairs, which are probably the result of centric fusions of two small t/a chromosome pairs.
according to our results, the ancestral t/a chromosome that contains the lg <dig>  might be involved in one of these events resulting in a m/sm chromosome.
such assumption could not be inferred for t. mariae , in which the diploid chromosome number reduction to 2n =  <dig> must be the result of rearrangements that did not involve the linkage groups investigated here .
additionally, the reduction of chromosome number observed in o. karongae  and the presence of three pairs of medium- sized chromosomes, that are not found in the typical oreochromis species, were originated by chromosome fusion events involving lg <dig>  <cit>  and could represent recent chromosomal rearrangements that have occurred independently in tilapiine and haplochromine groups.
the additional signal observed in the 1p arm  of the largest chromosome of males and females of m. lombardoi could be a consequence of specific rearrangements or, even more, the presence of chimeric bac inserts.
the absence of bac-fish signals in south american cichlids  belonging to different tribes  could be associated to genomic rearrangements that have disrupted in a small-scale level the genomic blocks carried by the bac clones of o. niloticus in relation to these cichlines.
instead of being a monophyletic group  <cit> , neotropical cichlids harbor significantly higher levels of genetic variation compared to the african pseudocrenilabrinae group  <cit> .
although genomic rearrangements seem to have occurred differentiating south american and african cichlids, it is plausible that large genomic blocks are still conserved between them as well as in relation to other fish groups.
unfortunately, deep analyses integrating cytogenetics and genomic data were not possible for cichlinae species since there is no available large-scale genome information for this subfamily so far.
comparative analyses of vertebrates
using bac-end sequence data available at bouillabase, it was possible to perform comparative analyses and detect regions of synteny among african cichlids and model fish species, and also vertebrates.
in this work, conserved  chromosome segments have been successfully identified by means of comparative cytogenetics between cichlid markers  and mammals and birds chromosomes.
the marker distances are very similar among the analyzed teleosts.
however, considering non-fish groups, the markers’ distances are, in most cases, very divergent, evidencing that genomes are suffering rearrangements, despite the maintenance of conserved large genomic blocks as part of the same lg.
although large genomic blocks are conserved among vertebrates, variability in the genes/dna sequences harbored in these regions is expected.
comparative bac mapping has already shown that some stickleback chromosomes have a nearly complete synteny with those of cichlids.
although stickleback does not belong to the order perciformes, it is considered to be the closest related genome to cichlids among the currently available sequenced teleost genomes  <cit>  and is currently the best reference sequence for assembling comparative maps of tilapia  <cit> .
a range of studies using comparative cytogenetics has demonstrated that karyotypes are conserved in a macro scale throughout vertebrates.
in canidae, for example, despite the extensive variation in chromosome numbers and morphology, the majority of conserved chromosome segments appear to have remained largely intact in the karyotypes of extant canid species, although the relative orientation and distances are not always conserved  <cit> .
conserved karyotypes are also observed in birds, which show a slow rate of interchromosomal rearrangements  <cit> , and within the reptile family scincidae, a character that was shown by cross-species chromosome painting  <cit> .
similarly, at different taxonomic levels, comparative gene mapping has revealed a highly conserved linkage homology between an agamid lizard  and a snake   <cit> .
conservation of large genomic blocks were also identified among different species of the salmonidae family based on bac-fish blocks  <cit> , and on sox genes regions in cichlids that revealed a large genomic block that was conserved through vertebrates  <cit> .
these conservations of gene orders at scales of several mb in diverse vertebrate groups permit the use of relatively complete sequences of model fish species to accelerate gene discovery and positional cloning of non-model species  <cit> .
the synteny observed in different vertebrates could be due to intrinsic chromosomal properties that confer selective pressure on large genomic blocks that should be preserved from major changes  <cit> .
there is a classical idea that fish genomes have high rates of chromosomal rearrangements compared to other vertebrates and then, probably, evidence low rates of synteny  <cit> .
however, our data associated to previous genomic studies are revealing that when we compare the genomic synteny among teleosts and other vertebrates in a macro scale level, large syntenic blocks can be clearly identified.
comparative analysis of sex chromosome regions
three genes from different lgs of cichlids  are located on the x chromosome of human and other mammals, highlighting the conservation of this sex chromosome through mammals  <cit> .
however, in bird clade these genes do not correspond to the z or w chromosomes and, instead of this, are located in autosomes.
this is explained by the fact that the zw and xy chromosomes have no homology and both sexual chromosome pair systems were derived from different autosomes from their common ancestors  <cit> .
in contrast to mammals and birds, the pufferfish, like most fish, does not possess heteromorphic sex chromosomes, and the genetic mechanism of sex determination is still unclear.
however, the human x is a mosaic of orthologs from three chromosomes of the pufferfish: most human xp and xq genes are syntenic on pufferfish chromosomes  <dig>   <dig>  and  <dig>  <cit> .
in addition, zebrafish lgs  <dig> and  <dig> are also related with both human xp and xq orthologs  <cit> .
the largest chromosome of nile tilapia that contains the lg <dig> was previously thought to be the sex chromosome of this species  <cit> .
however, the major sex-determining region in the nile tilapia was mapped on lg <dig>  <cit>  located in a small t/a chromosome .
lg <dig> also contains the wt <dig> and cyp19a genes involved in mammalian sex differentiation  <cit> , although they are not considered anymore to be candidate genes for sex determination in african cichlids  <cit> .
even though our results are still limited, the integrated comparative analysis approach seems to be promising in the clarification of the complex evolutionary dynamics of sex chromosomes among fishes.
CONCLUSIONS
although african cichlids present karyotype variations related to number and morphology of the chromosomes, the linkage groups that were currently investigated  were preserved from major changes during their chromosomal diversification.
the linkage of large chromosome blocks among cichlids was also preserved in other fish and vertebrates.
the use of bacs containing genes/markers represents a promising alternative for a better physical mapping for cichlids, and the integration of bac-fish maps to genomic data stands for a powerful tool to support a better assembling of genomes, contributing in the establishment of a framework for comparative genome-wide studies.

 integrated genome maps became a powerful tool to fill the gaps generated by the low resolution of linkage mapping and the problems of genome sequencing and assembly, providing a more accurate scenario of the genome structure. the application of fluorescent in situ hybridization based in the use of bacterial artificial chromosome clones as probes represents an efficient approach to anchor genomic and linkage data on physical chromosomes. bac libraries have been explored for many aspects of molecular and genomic studies, such as the positional cloning of genes, comparative studies of synteny and gene organization among different species, as well as for local or whole genome physical and genetic mapping and sequencing. in cytogenetic research and chromosome mapping, the potential of bacs for animal genome analyses has improved, since several good quality genomes are already available in public databases bringing up the possibility to refine the chromosome analysis under the focus of bac-fish mapping. cichlid fishes represent a monophyletic group classified in subfamilies: etroplinae, ptychochrominae, cichlinae and pseudocrenilabrinae. although african pseudocrenilabrinae cichlids can be separated in three major groups, these groups are not recognized as valid taxonomic units. the african groups of lakes victoria, malawi and tanganika represent a classical example of extensive and rapid radiation and therefore are highly interesting for evolutionary biology analyses. the karyotypes of more than cichlid species have been determined, evidencing a diploid chromosome number ranging from 2n =  to 2n =  african cichlids have a modal diploid chromosome number of chromosomes whereas the neotropical cichlids contain 2n =  chromosomes reviewed by. genetic maps containing a few hundred polymorphic markers provide a starting point in order to resolve the chromosomal location of cloned genes or markers. genetic linkage maps have been developed for a number of fish species, including zebrafish, medaka, catfish, rainbow trout, atlantic salmon, and also cichlids as the nile tilapia oreochromis niloticus, lake malawi haplochromines, and astatotilapia burtoni. there are also other genetic/genomic resources for cichlids including extensive collections of expressed sequence tags for lake victoria haplochromines, a. burtoni, and o. niloticus, bac libraries for nile tilapia, and haplochromines from lakes malawi, victoria, and tanganika, and a high-resolution map for nile tilapia. altogether, these genomic resources have driven the investigation of several aspects of cichlid’s biology, including sex determination. tilapiines have an xy sex chromosome system on linkage group or a zw system on lg. however, at least two distinct genetic sex determination systems in the lake malawi cichlids were found: a xy sex-determination system on lg and a zw system on lg. furthermore, some genes observed in lg cyp19a and wt are involved in the sexual differentiation of mammals; the clcn gene, located on lg turns to be interesting since it was detected in the human x chromosome; the opsin genes responsible for the color-spectrum vision of cichlids and thus involved with sexual selection and adaptation to new environments are located in lg. additionally, the genome of o. niloticus has been recently sequenced, leading to the opportunity to integrate nucleotide sequence information and other genetic data. in this context, we address the comparative analysis of lg and of cichlids based on the integration of genomic and molecular cytogenetic. furthermore, the combined genomic/cytogenetic information obtained for cichlids was also comparatively analyzed with other vertebrates. our results provide evidence for extensive synteny conservation of segments among pseudocrenilabrinae cichlids and also between cichlids and other vertebrates. such information is promising in the establishment of a framework for additional genome-wide studies.  bac-fish mapping the chromosome diploid number and morphology were analyzed in giemsa-stained metaphases. such analysis confirmed the previous karyotype data available for cichlids composed of meta and submetacentric, and telo/acrocentric chromosomes. metaphases of males and females of o. niloticus were used to set up the bac-fish mapping experiments. after that, a comparative mapping, including eight other pseudocrenilabrinae species, was carried out to elucidate the evolutionary history of chromosomes carrying lg and. 2n, diploid chromosome number; m/sm, metacentric/submetacentric; t/a, telocentric/acrocentric; micro, microchromosomes; m/f, males/females; ns, not identified sex. four bacs from lg mapped on the long arm of a small t/a chromosome pair of o. niloticus. the largest chromosome of o. niloticus evidenced labeling signals of eight bacs of lg and the lg mapping confirmed the presence of a lot of repetitive dna in the end of the largest chromosome of all analyzed species. three bacs from lg mapped on a medium t/a chromosome different from that containing the lg, and three bacs from lg mapped on the second largest pair of o. niloticus. no differences were found between males and females for any of the hybridized bac-probes. at least two individuals of each species were used in bac-fish experiments and the signal patterns observed for lg and were conserved in number and position when compared to the reference species o. niloticus. no results were obtained for bacs of lg in labeotropheus trewavasae due to the low quality chromosome preparations of this species for fish procedures. in south american cichlids, none of the bac probes produced identifiable chromosomal signals. furthermore, no hybridization signal was observed in the asian etroplinae species, etroplus maculatus. besides the conservation of the studied lgs, some differences were observed in the chromosomes’ morphology of the species: astatotilapia burtoni showed a different pattern for lg which is located on the short arm of a large m/sm chromosome instead of a smal t/a chromosome as observed in the other cichlids. the single bac signal observed in the short arms of the chromosomes was related to repeated sequences as observed for the unh marker in lg of metriaclima lombardoi. additionally, small variations in the chromosomal position of the markers were also observed, but these could be just a consequence of variation in the chromosome condensation of the analyzed individuals. the chromosomal positions of all selected bacs were correlated with their corresponding order on their linkage maps. this enabled the association of lgs with chromosomes and to orientate their position according to the short/long arm of the corresponding chromosomes. using the convention that the short arm is north oriented to and the long arm is south oriented, the north/south orientation of the current oreochromis lg matches with the short/long arm; however, the orientation of lg and should be inverted in relation to the order of previously published molecular markers. in silico comparative analyses comparative genomic analyzes of lg at bouillabase genome browser suggested a conserved pattern of these markers in medaka chromosome stickleback chromosome and pufferfish chromosome. additionally, using ensembl and genomicus databases, the chromosomal position of the genes wt1b and cyp19a mapped in lg was comparatively analyzed among fishes and also other vertebrates. the present analyses showed that wt1b and cyp19a genes are located at chromosome of danio rerio and separated by 6mb. in medaka and pufferfish, these genes are separated by 10mb and 5mb, respectively. a divergent scenario occur in other vertebrates, in which these genes appear in different chromosomes as observed in chicken and primates, where both markers are in chromosomes and and chromosomes and respectively. nid, not identified scaffold in o. niloticus; ns, no similarity; chr, chromosome; chrun, unidentified chromosome. lg proved to be conserved with at least two correspondent markers between the fish species medaka and stickleback. in the pufferfish genome, markers of lg mapped at a non identified region. despite the synteny of lg markers identified in medaka and stickleback, an inversion of the markers unh and unh separeted by mb, was detected in medaka in relation to oreochromis. lg contains few known genes that could be used for comparative analyses in other vertebrates. clcn was the only gene identified in other vertebrates. using clcn in a comparative analysis against the zebrafish genome, this gene appears duplicated and located at chromosomes and on the other hand, in all mammal species, clcn has been conserved in x chromosome. the majority of lg markers corresponds to chromosome in medaka, chromosome in stickleback, and chromosome in pufferfish. although other lg markers were found in stickleback and medaka genome, it was not possible to categorize their chromosome position. the position of the mme gene differs, as it can appear in chromosome or respectively, in the three mentioned species. with the addition of zebrafish in ensembl datasheet, an extremely conserved pattern of lg in chromosome was evidenced. once more, a duplicated marker was found in zebrafish. genes observed in lg have their positions conserved in chromosome of primates. additionally, this conservation is also related to horse chromosome mouse chromosome chicken chromosome and turkey chromosome. despite located in the same chromosome, the position of these genes are inconsistent - in o. niloticus these genes appear tight together at cm; however, in other species they appear separated, sometimes around 70mb apart. the opn gene, present in the end of o. niloticus lg matched in the x chromosome for all analyzed mammals. analysis of lg markers in bouillabase showed a block of synteny between oreochromis, stickleback chromosome and pufferfish chromosome even taking into account that the distances between these markers are similar among the species. in medaka genome, only the unh marker was identified in chromosome. it was impossible to identify the position of the igfbp marker in medaka and stickleback genomes, but in pufferfish it is located together with dusp, as also observed for o. niloticus. in ensembl comparative studies, the analysis of a small region of lg that contains the genes rerg, kcne1l, dusp and igfbp revealed a conserved position of rerg and dusp at the same chromosome in vertebrates: homo sapiens chromosome macaca mulatta chromosome bos taurus chromosome gallus gallus and meleagris gallopavo chromosome and indeed in the reptile anolis carolinensis chromosome however, these genes are separated by to mb in non-fish species. moreover, the gene kcne1l was conserved in the x chromosome of all mammals. discussion cytogenetic mapping and chromosome stability in pseudocrenilabrinae the most important find in our study is the extreme chromosome conservation observed within african cichlids. it is already known that african cichlids comprise about species and that their modal chromosome number is 2n = . extensive comparative mapping has demonstrated that the genetic maps for tilapia and malawi cichlids are almost perfectly collinear. this conservation could be evidenced through comparative physical chromosomal mapping of linkage groups as shown in the present study. on the other hand, variability at the cytogenetic level among cichlids was mostly observed based in repetitive dna chromosome mapping and seems to reflect the evolutionary dynamics of the repetitive genomic fraction and not broad processes acting in the whole karyotype. within pseudocrenilabrinae, the major karyotype feature in the tilapiines is the presence of one large t/a chromosome pair, which is significantly larger than all other elements of the karyotype. on the other hand, the haplochromine and hemichromine cichlids have shown two outstanding chromosome pairs - the first and the second largest elements that correspond to lg and lg respectively. the chromosome mapping of lg and lg markers in pseudocrenilabrinae species confirms the proposed homology between the two largest chromosome pairs of tilapiines and haplochromines/hemichromines. however, the hypothesis concerning an independent chromosome fusion that originated the largest chromosomes in tilapiines and haplochromines is not in agreement with the results observed for the cytogenetic mapping of lg and lg markers. it is known that the largest chromosome pair of o. niloticus originated by a centric fusion event of three other pairs of the ancestral cichlid karyotype composed of acrocentric chromosomes. a previous study proposed that a first chromosome fusion took place before the divergence of the main east african cichlid groups. the second chromosome fusion occurred independently in the tilapiines and non-tilapiines. in the tilapiines, a new chromosome was fused to the largest pair, and in the non-tilapiines, the second fusion did not involve the largest chromosome, but two other chromosomes, which gave rise to the chromosome pair however, when we compared the distribution of bac signals through the long arm of the two largest chromosomes in tilapiines and non-tilapiines species, we detected that the second chromosome fusion seems to be identical in these two groups, producing a chromosome with the same genomic content that remained conserved in all pseudocrenilabrinae species so far analyzed. the differences observed in the chromosome size of the first pair between tilapiines and haplochromines could be due to the intense dynamics of repeated dnas located in the entire long arm instead of differences related to possible chromosome fusions. a range of studies has shown that the largest chromosome in o. niloticus presents a great amount of heterochromatin, microsatellites, transposable elements, lines and sines, and non-ltr retrotransposons. the positive results using lg3-bacs evidenced the accumulation of repeated dnas in the lg chromosome of all pseudocrenilabrinae, specially in tilapiine species. +: presence of repetitive dnas. despite displaying a highly conserved karyotype structure, many events of duplication, inversion, and fusion occurred during the diversification of african cichlids and resulted in diploid chromosome numbers divergent from the pattern of chromosomes, as observed in tilapia mariae with 2n = , t. sparrmanii with 2n = , oreochromis alcalicus with 2n = , o. karongae with 2n = , and astatotilapia burtoni with 2n = , among others. a. burtoni has two metacentric chromosome pairs, which are probably the result of centric fusions of two small t/a chromosome pairs. according to our results, the ancestral t/a chromosome that contains the lg might be involved in one of these events resulting in a m/sm chromosome. such assumption could not be inferred for t. mariae, in which the diploid chromosome number reduction to 2n =  must be the result of rearrangements that did not involve the linkage groups investigated here. additionally, the reduction of chromosome number observed in o. karongae and the presence of three pairs of medium- sized chromosomes, that are not found in the typical oreochromis species, were originated by chromosome fusion events involving lg and could represent recent chromosomal rearrangements that have occurred independently in tilapiine and haplochromine groups. the additional signal observed in the 1p arm of the largest chromosome of males and females of m. lombardoi could be a consequence of specific rearrangements or, even more, the presence of chimeric bac inserts. the absence of bac-fish signals in south american cichlids belonging to different tribes could be associated to genomic rearrangements that have disrupted in a small-scale level the genomic blocks carried by the bac clones of o. niloticus in relation to these cichlines. instead of being a monophyletic group, neotropical cichlids harbor significantly higher levels of genetic variation compared to the african pseudocrenilabrinae group. although genomic rearrangements seem to have occurred differentiating south american and african cichlids, it is plausible that large genomic blocks are still conserved between them as well as in relation to other fish groups. unfortunately, deep analyses integrating cytogenetics and genomic data were not possible for cichlinae species since there is no available large-scale genome information for this subfamily so far. comparative analyses of vertebrates using bac-end sequence data available at bouillabase, it was possible to perform comparative analyses and detect regions of synteny among african cichlids and model fish species, and also vertebrates. in this work, conserved chromosome segments have been successfully identified by means of comparative cytogenetics between cichlid markers and mammals and birds chromosomes. the marker distances are very similar among the analyzed teleosts. however, considering non-fish groups, the markers’ distances are, in most cases, very divergent, evidencing that genomes are suffering rearrangements, despite the maintenance of conserved large genomic blocks as part of the same lg. although large genomic blocks are conserved among vertebrates, variability in the genes/dna sequences harbored in these regions is expected. comparative bac mapping has already shown that some stickleback chromosomes have a nearly complete synteny with those of cichlids. although stickleback does not belong to the order perciformes, it is considered to be the closest related genome to cichlids among the currently available sequenced teleost genomes and is currently the best reference sequence for assembling comparative maps of tilapia. a range of studies using comparative cytogenetics has demonstrated that karyotypes are conserved in a macro scale throughout vertebrates. in canidae, for example, despite the extensive variation in chromosome numbers and morphology, the majority of conserved chromosome segments appear to have remained largely intact in the karyotypes of extant canid species, although the relative orientation and distances are not always conserved. conserved karyotypes are also observed in birds, which show a slow rate of interchromosomal rearrangements, and within the reptile family scincidae, a character that was shown by cross-species chromosome painting. similarly, at different taxonomic levels, comparative gene mapping has revealed a highly conserved linkage homology between an agamid lizard and a snake. conservation of large genomic blocks were also identified among different species of the salmonidae family based on bac-fish blocks, and on sox genes regions in cichlids that revealed a large genomic block that was conserved through vertebrates. these conservations of gene orders at scales of several mb in diverse vertebrate groups permit the use of relatively complete sequences of model fish species to accelerate gene discovery and positional cloning of non-model species. the synteny observed in different vertebrates could be due to intrinsic chromosomal properties that confer selective pressure on large genomic blocks that should be preserved from major changes. there is a classical idea that fish genomes have high rates of chromosomal rearrangements compared to other vertebrates and then, probably, evidence low rates of synteny. however, our data associated to previous genomic studies are revealing that when we compare the genomic synteny among teleosts and other vertebrates in a macro scale level, large syntenic blocks can be clearly identified. comparative analysis of sex chromosome regions three genes from different lgs of cichlids are located on the x chromosome of human and other mammals, highlighting the conservation of this sex chromosome through mammals. however, in bird clade these genes do not correspond to the z or w chromosomes and, instead of this, are located in autosomes. this is explained by the fact that the zw and xy chromosomes have no homology and both sexual chromosome pair systems were derived from different autosomes from their common ancestors. in contrast to mammals and birds, the pufferfish, like most fish, does not possess heteromorphic sex chromosomes, and the genetic mechanism of sex determination is still unclear. however, the human x is a mosaic of orthologs from three chromosomes of the pufferfish: most human xp and xq genes are syntenic on pufferfish chromosomes and. in addition, zebrafish lgs and are also related with both human xp and xq orthologs. the largest chromosome of nile tilapia that contains the lg was previously thought to be the sex chromosome of this species. however, the major sex-determining region in the nile tilapia was mapped on lg located in a small t/a chromosome. lg also contains the wt and cyp19a genes involved in mammalian sex differentiation, although they are not considered anymore to be candidate genes for sex determination in african cichlids. even though our results are still limited, the integrated comparative analysis approach seems to be promising in the clarification of the complex evolutionary dynamics of sex chromosomes among fishes.  although african cichlids present karyotype variations related to number and morphology of the chromosomes, the linkage groups that were currently investigated were preserved from major changes during their chromosomal diversification. the linkage of large chromosome blocks among cichlids was also preserved in other fish and vertebrates. the use of bacs containing genes/markers represents a promising alternative for a better physical mapping for cichlids, and the integration of bac-fish maps to genomic data stands for a powerful tool to support a better assembling of genomes, contributing in the establishment of a framework for comparative genome-wide studies. 
an efficient way to perform comparative cytogenetic mapping is based on bac clones mapping by fluorescence in situ hybridization. the cytogenetic mapping data were also integrated with bac-end sequences information of o. niloticus and comparatively analyzed against the genome of other fish species and vertebrates. comparative in silico analysis also identified large genomic blocks that were conserved in distantly related fish groups and also in other vertebrates. in this report, to address the knowledge gap on the genome evolution in cichlid fishes, bac clones of an oreochromis niloticus library covering the linkage groups and were mapped onto the chromosomes of african cichlid species. although it has been suggested that fishes contain plastic genomes with high rates of chromosomal rearrangements and probably low rates of synteny conservation, our results evidence that large syntenic chromosome segments have been maintained conserved during evolution, at least for the considered markers.
 the availability of a large number of recently sequenced vertebrate genomes opens new avenues to integrate cytogenetics and genomics in comparative and evolutionary studies. cytogenetic mapping can offer alternative means to identify conserved synteny shared by distinct genomes and also to define genome regions that are still not fine characterized even after wide-ranging nucleotide sequence efforts. an efficient way to perform comparative cytogenetic mapping is based on bac clones mapping by fluorescence in situ hybridization. in this report, to address the knowledge gap on the genome evolution in cichlid fishes, bac clones of an oreochromis niloticus library covering the linkage groups and were mapped onto the chromosomes of african cichlid species. the cytogenetic mapping data were also integrated with bac-end sequences information of o. niloticus and comparatively analyzed against the genome of other fish species and vertebrates.  the location of bacs from lg and revealed a strong chromosomal conservation among the analyzed cichlid species genomes, which evidenced a synteny of the markers of each lg. comparative in silico analysis also identified large genomic blocks that were conserved in distantly related fish groups and also in other vertebrates.  although it has been suggested that fishes contain plastic genomes with high rates of chromosomal rearrangements and probably low rates of synteny conservation, our results evidence that large syntenic chromosome segments have been maintained conserved during evolution, at least for the considered markers. additionally, our current cytogenetic mapping efforts integrated with genomic approaches conduct to a new perspective to address important questions involving chromosome evolution in fishes. cichlidaegenome evolutionmolecular cytogeneticschromosomelinkage groupsbacs 