International Journal of Molecular Sciences Article Comparatively Barcoded Chromosomes of Brachypodium Perennials Tell the Story of Their Karyotype Structure and Evolution Joanna Lusinska 1 , Alexander Betekhtin 1 , Diana Lopez-Alvarez 2,3 , Pilar Catalan 3,4,5, Glyn Jenkins 6, Elzbieta Wolny 1,* and Robert Hasterok 1,* 1 Institute of Biology, Biotechnology and Environmental Protection, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Silesia in Katowice, 40-032 Katowice, Poland;
[email protected] (J.L.);
[email protected] (A.B.) 2 Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, National University of Columbia, Palmira 763533, Colombia;
[email protected] 3 Department of Agriculture (Botany), High Polytechnic School of Huesca, University of Zaragoza, 22071 Huesca, Spain;
[email protected] 4 Grupo de Bioquímica, Biofísica y Biología Computacional (BIFI, UNIZAR), Unidad Asociada al CSIC, 50018 Zaragoza, Spain 5 Institute of Biology, Tomsk State University, Tomsk 634050, Russia 6 Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth SY23 3DA, UK;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] (E.W.);
[email protected] (R.H.) Received: 28 September 2019; Accepted: 2 November 2019; Published: 7 November 2019 Abstract: The Brachypodium genus is an informative model system for studying grass karyotype organization. Previous studies of a limited number of species and reference chromosomes have not provided a comprehensive picture of the enigmatic phylogenetic relationships in the genus. Comparative chromosome barcoding, which enables the reconstruction of the evolutionary history of individual chromosomes and their segments, allowed us to infer the relationships between putative ancestral karyotypes of extinct species and extant karyotypes of current species.