Universal characters, integrable chains and the Painlevé equations

The universal character is a generalization of the Schur polynomial attached to a pair of partitions; see (Adv. Math. 74 (1989) 57). We prove that the universal character solves the Darboux chain. The N-periodic closing of the chain is equivalent to the Painlevé equation of type AN-1(1). Consequently we obtain an expression of rational solutions of the Painlevé equations in terms of the universal characters.