bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.01.24.917823; this version posted January 25, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. Low ribosomal RNA genes copy number provoke genomic instability and chromosomal segment duplication events that modify global gene expression and plant-pathogen response Ariadna Picart-Picolo1,2, Stefan Grob3, Nathalie Picault1,2, Michal Franek4, Thierry halter5, Tom R. Maier6, Christel Llauro1,2, Edouard Jobet1,2, Panpan Zhang1,2,7, Paramasivan Vijayapalani6, Thomas J. Baum6, Lionel Navarro5, Martina Dvorackova4, Marie Mirouze1,2,7, Frederic Pontvianne1,2# 1CNRS, LGDP UMR5096, Université de Perpignan, Perpignan, France 2UPVD, LGDP UMR5096, Université de Perpignan, Perpignan, France 3Institute of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland 4 Mendel Centre for Plant Genomics and Proteomics, CEITEC, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic 5ENS, IBENS, CNRS/INSERM, PSL Research University, Paris, France 6Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA 7IRD, UMR232 DIADE, Montpellier, France #corresponding author:
[email protected] ABSTRACT Among the hundreds of ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene copies organized as tandem repeats in the nucleolus organizer regions (NORs), only a portion is usually actively expressed in the nucleolus and participate in the ribosome biogenesis process. The role of these extra-copies remains elusive, but previous studies suggested their importance in genome stability and global 1 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.01.24.917823; this version posted January 25, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder.