Cytogenetics of four foam-nesting frog species of the Physalaemus gracilis group (Anura, Leptodactylidae)

JUAN MARTIN FERRO; ALBERTO TAFFAREL; CRISTIAN TOMATIS; CLAUDIO BORTEIRO; FRANCISCO KOLENC; KALEB GATTO; LUCIANA LOURENÇO; DIEGO BALDO

ANAIS DA ACADEMIA BRASILEIRA DE CIENCIAS.

ACAD BRASILEIRA DE CIENCIAS

Lugar: Rio de Janeiro; Año: 2022

0001-3765

Intending to increase the knowledge about cytogenetics of Physalaemus and thesparsely studied P. gracilis group, we analyzed the karyotypes of P. carrizorum, P. gracilis,P. lisei, and P. sp. aff. gracilis. We studied chromosome morphology, heterochromatinpatterns, Ag-NORs, and mapped the repetitive DNA sequence PcP190. All four speciesshowed diploid karyotypes composed of 22 bi-armed chromosomes, and similar patterns ofC- bands and Ag-NOR. C-bands were mainly centromeric and pericentromeric; non-centromeric C-bands were detected on the telomeres of pair 1 in P. lisei althoughdistinguish P. gracilis from its sibling species P. sp. aff. gracilis. The Ag-NOR sites weredetected on the long arms of the chromosome pair 8 but with a variable position amongspecies. Clusters of PcP190 showed centromeric and pericentromeric positions coincidentwith conspicuous C-bands, on pairs 2 and 9 in P. gracilis and P. sp. aff. gracilis, pair 3 in P.carrizorum, and pair 7 in P. lisei. These results significantly increase the knowledge about Physalaemus cytogenetics and encourage further studies on the satellite PcP190 in othergenera of Leiuperinae to better understand its taxonomic distribution and the evolutionarydynamics.