cells Review Dark Matter of Primate Genomes: Satellite DNA Repeats and Their Evolutionary Dynamics Syed Farhan Ahmad 1,2, Worapong Singchat 1,2, Maryam Jehangir 1,3, Aorarat Suntronpong 1,2, Thitipong Panthum 1,2, Suchinda Malaivijitnond 4,5 and Kornsorn Srikulnath 1,2,4,6,7,* 1 Laboratory of Animal Cytogenetics and Comparative Genomics (ACCG), Department of Genetics, Faculty of Science, Kasetsart University, Bangkok 10900, Thailand;
[email protected] (S.F.A.);
[email protected] (W.S.);
[email protected] (M.J.);
[email protected] (A.S.);
[email protected] (T.P.) 2 Special Research Unit for Wildlife Genomics (SRUWG), Department of Forest Biology, Faculty of Forestry, Kasetsart University, Bangkok 10900, Thailand 3 Department of Structural and Functional Biology, Institute of Bioscience at Botucatu, São Paulo State University (UNESP), Botucatu, São Paulo 18618-689, Brazil 4 National Primate Research Center of Thailand, Chulalongkorn University, Saraburi 18110, Thailand;
[email protected] 5 Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand 6 Center of Excellence on Agricultural Biotechnology (AG-BIO/PERDO-CHE), Bangkok 10900, Thailand 7 Omics Center for Agriculture, Bioresources, Food and Health, Kasetsart University (OmiKU), Bangkok 10900, Thailand * Correspondence:
[email protected] Received: 27 October 2020; Accepted: 16 December 2020; Published: 18 December 2020 Abstract: A substantial portion of the primate genome is composed of non-coding regions, so-called “dark matter”, which includes an abundance of tandemly repeated sequences called satellite DNA. Collectively known as the satellitome, this genomic component offers exciting evolutionary insights into aspects of primate genome biology that raise new questions and challenge existing paradigms.