An ancient satellite DNA has maintained repetitive units of the original structure in most species of the living fossil plant genus Zamia.

ZpS1 satellite DNA is specific to the genus Zamia and presents repetitive units organized as long arrays and also as very short arrays dispersed in the genome. We have characterized the structure of the ZpS1 repeats in 12 species representative of the whole geographic distribution of the genus. In most species, the clone most common sequences (cMCS) were so similar that a general most common sequence (GMCS) of the ZpS1 repetitive unit in the genus could be obtained. The few partial variations from the GMCS found in cMCS of some species correspond to variable positions present in most other species, as indicated by the clone consensus sequences (cCS). Two species have an additional species-specific variety of ZpS1 satellite. The dispersed repeats were found to contain more mutations than repeats from long arrays. Our results indicate that all or most species of Zamia inherited the ZpS1 satellite from a common ancestor in Miocene and have maintained repetitive units of the original structure till present. The features of ZpS1 satellite in the genus Zamia are poorly compatible with the model of concerted evolution, but they are perfectly consistent with a new model of satellite evolution based on experimental evidences indicating that a specific amplification-substitution repair mechanism maintains the homogeneity and stability of the repeats structure in each satellite DNA originally present in a species as long as the species exists.