PECULIARITIES OF RFLP OF HIGHLY REPETITIV E DNA IN CROW GENOMES

We present a study of the structural organization of highly repetitive DNA in genomes of hooded crow Corvus cornix L., carrion crow C. coron e L., and jungle crow C. macrorhynchos Wagl. RFLP and blot-hybridizati on with 210 bp Msp I fragment from hooded crow nDNA suggest the inters pecific structural conservatism of the most repetitive DNA. The family of repeats we studied had tandem organization and the same (210 bp) p eriod of reiteration for a set of restriction enzymes. However, in par allel to the general similarity of restriction patterns there are spec ies-specific peculiarities. The repetitive family revealed (Alu I, Bsu R I, and Msp I fragments) has quantitative RFLP of nDNA and interspeci fic differences in the extent of the multimer ''ladder'' pattern of Ms p I fragments. The latter is more pronounced in nDNA of carrion crow t han in that of phylogeneticaly distant jungle crow and closely related hooded crow. This suggests a recent amplification event for highly or ganizated homological repeats in crow genomes.