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Methods in Molecular Biology (Clifton,... 2009Caenorhabditis elegans is an important experimental organism for the study of recombination during meiosis. A variety of techniques have been developed for the... (Review)
Review
Caenorhabditis elegans is an important experimental organism for the study of recombination during meiosis. A variety of techniques have been developed for the measurement of meiotic recombination in C. elegans, ranging from traditional genetic measures to direct cytological determination of chiasma frequency. Here, we provide methods for some of the varied approaches used for the study of meiotic recombination in these tiny but powerful worms.
Topics: Animals; Caenorhabditis elegans; Genetic Markers; Genetic Techniques; Meiosis; Models, Genetic; Oogenesis; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; Radiation, Ionizing; Recombination, Genetic; Spermatogenesis
PubMed: 19799178
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-59745-527-5_7 -
Advances in Genetics 1977
Review
Topics: Aspergillus; Aspergillus nidulans; Chromosome Aberrations; Chromosome Mapping; Chromosomes; Crossing Over, Genetic; Diploidy; Gene Frequency; Heterozygote; Meiosis; Mitosis; Recombination, Genetic; Sex; Species Specificity; Translocation, Genetic
PubMed: 327767
DOI: 10.1016/s0065-2660(08)60245-x -
Methods in Molecular Biology (Clifton,... 2009Traditional methods for surveying meiotic recombination in humans are limited to pedigree and linkage disequilibrium analyses. We have developed assays that allow the... (Review)
Review
Traditional methods for surveying meiotic recombination in humans are limited to pedigree and linkage disequilibrium analyses. We have developed assays that allow the direct detection of crossover and gene conversion molecules in batches of sperm DNA. To date, we have characterized 26 recombination hotspots by allele-specific PCR and selectively amplified recombinant DNA molecules from these regions. These analyses have revealed that meiotic crossover hotspots in humans are highly localized and flanked by DNA segments where recombination is suppressed. The centers of crossover hotspots are also active in noncrossover recombination, displaying short conversion tracts.
Topics: Algorithms; Cytogenetic Analysis; Humans; Male; Meiosis; Models, Biological; Polymerase Chain Reaction; Recombination, Genetic; Spermatozoa
PubMed: 19799191
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-59745-527-5_20 -
Trends in Genetics : TIG Sep 2003
Review
Topics: Animals; Humans; Meiosis; Recombination, Genetic
PubMed: 12957545
DOI: 10.1016/S0168-9525(03)00201-4 -
Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology Sep 2015Meiosis is one of the defining events in gametogenesis. Male and female germ cells both undergo one round of meiotic cell division during their development in order to... (Review)
Review
Meiosis is one of the defining events in gametogenesis. Male and female germ cells both undergo one round of meiotic cell division during their development in order to reduce the ploidy of the gametes, and thereby maintain the ploidy of the species after fertilisation. However, there are some aspects of meiosis in the female germline, such as the prolonged arrest in dictyate, that appear to predispose oocytes to missegregate their chromosomes and transmit aneuploidies to the next generation. These maternally-derived aneuploidies are particularly problematic in humans where they are major contributors to miscarriage, age-related infertility, and the high incidence of Down's syndrome in human conceptions. This review will discuss how events that occur in foetal oocyte development and during the oocytes' prolonged dictyate arrest can influence meiotic chromosome segregation and the incidence of aneuploidy in adult oocytes.
Topics: Animals; Chromosome Segregation; Crossing Over, Genetic; Female; Humans; Meiosis; Oocytes; Oogenesis; Recombination, Genetic; Trisomy
PubMed: 26454098
DOI: 10.1016/j.semcdb.2015.10.005 -
Annual Review of Genomics and Human... 2004As recently as 20 years ago, there was relatively little information about the number and distribution of recombinational events in human meiosis, and we knew virtually... (Review)
Review
As recently as 20 years ago, there was relatively little information about the number and distribution of recombinational events in human meiosis, and we knew virtually nothing about factors affecting patterns of recombination. However, the generation of a variety of linkage-based genetic mapping tools and, more recently, cytological approaches that enable us to directly visualize the recombinational process in meiocytes, have led to an increased understanding of human meiosis. In this review, we discuss the different approaches used to study meiotic recombination in humans, our understanding of factors that affect the number and location of recombinational events, and clinical consequences of variation in the recombinational process.
Topics: Age Factors; Crossing Over, Genetic; Female; Genetic Variation; Humans; Male; Meiosis; Nondisjunction, Genetic; Recombination, Genetic; Sex Factors
PubMed: 15485352
DOI: 10.1146/annurev.genom.4.070802.110217 -
Current Opinion in Plant Biology Nov 2012Sexual eukaryotes reproduce via the meiotic cell division, where ploidy is halved and homologous chromosomes undergo reciprocal genetic exchange, termed crossover (CO).... (Review)
Review
Sexual eukaryotes reproduce via the meiotic cell division, where ploidy is halved and homologous chromosomes undergo reciprocal genetic exchange, termed crossover (CO). CO frequency has a profound effect on patterns of genetic variation and species evolution. Relative CO rates vary extensively both within and between plant genomes. Plant genome size varies by over 1000-fold, largely due to differential expansion of repetitive sequences, and increased genome size is associated with reduced CO frequency. Gene versus repeat sequences associate with distinct chromatin modifications, and evidence from plant genomes indicates that this epigenetic information influences CO patterns. This is consistent with data from diverse eukaryotes that demonstrate the importance of chromatin structure for control of meiotic recombination. In this review I will discuss CO frequency patterns in plant genomes and recent advances in understanding recombination distributions.
Topics: Chromosomes, Plant; Crossing Over, Genetic; Genome Size; Genome, Plant; Meiosis; Plants; Polymorphism, Genetic; Recombination, Genetic
PubMed: 23017241
DOI: 10.1016/j.pbi.2012.09.002 -
Genome Dynamics 2009Meiotic recombination predominantly occurs at genomic loci referred to as recombination hotspots. The fission yeast, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, has proved to be an... (Review)
Review
Meiotic recombination predominantly occurs at genomic loci referred to as recombination hotspots. The fission yeast, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, has proved to be an excellent model organism in which to study details of the molecular basis of meiotic recombination hotspot activation. S. pombe has a number of different classes of meiotic hotspots, indicating that a single pathway does not confer hotspot activity throughout the genome. The M26-related hotspots are a particularly well characterised group of hotspots and details of the molecular activation of M26-related hotspots are now coming to light. Moreover, genome-wide DNA array analysis has been applied to the question of meiotic recombination in this organism and we are now starting to get a picture of recombination hotspot distribution on a genome-wide scale.
Topics: Genome, Fungal; Meiosis; Protein Binding; Recombination, Genetic; Schizosaccharomyces; Schizosaccharomyces pombe Proteins
PubMed: 18948703
DOI: 10.1159/000166614 -
BioEssays : News and Reviews in... Dec 2010Studies in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae have validated the major features of the double-strand break repair (DSBR) model as an accurate representation of the... (Review)
Review
Meiotic versus mitotic recombination: two different routes for double-strand break repair: the different functions of meiotic versus mitotic DSB repair are reflected in different pathway usage and different outcomes.
Studies in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae have validated the major features of the double-strand break repair (DSBR) model as an accurate representation of the pathway through which meiotic crossovers (COs) are produced. This success has led to this model being invoked to explain double-strand break (DSB) repair in other contexts. However, most non-crossover (NCO) recombinants generated during S. cerevisiae meiosis do not arise via a DSBR pathway. Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly clear that DSBR is a minor pathway for recombinational repair of DSBs that occur in mitotically-proliferating cells and that the synthesis-dependent strand annealing (SDSA) model appears to describe mitotic DSB repair more accurately. Fundamental dissimilarities between meiotic and mitotic recombination are not unexpected, since meiotic recombination serves a very different purpose (accurate chromosome segregation, which requires COs) than mitotic recombination (repair of DNA damage, which typically generates NCOs).
Topics: Chromosome Segregation; Crossing Over, Genetic; DNA Breaks, Double-Stranded; DNA Damage; DNA Repair; Meiosis; Mitosis; Mutation; Recombination, Genetic; Saccharomyces cerevisiae
PubMed: 20967781
DOI: 10.1002/bies.201000087 -
Microbiological Research Sep 2021The sustainable future of food industry and consumer demands meet the need to generate out-performing new yeast variants. This is addressed by using the natural yeast...
The sustainable future of food industry and consumer demands meet the need to generate out-performing new yeast variants. This is addressed by using the natural yeast diversity and breeding via sexual reproduction but the recovery of recombined spores in many industrial strains is limited. To circumvent this drawback, we examined whether or not the process of meiotic Return to Growth (RTG) that allows S. cerevisiae diploid cells to initiate meiotic recombination genome-wide and then re-enter into mitosis, will be effective to generate recombinants in a sterile and polyploid baking yeast strain (CNCM). We proceeded in four steps. First, whole genome sequencing of the CNCM strain revealed that it was an unbalanced polymorphic triploid. Second, we annotated a panel of genes likely involved in the success of the RTG process. Third, we examined the strain progression into sporulation and fourth, we developed an elutriation and reiterative RTG protocol that allowed to generate extensive libraries of recombinant RTGs, enriched up to 70 %. Altogether, the genome analysis of 122 RTG cells demonstrated that they were bona fide RTG recombinants since the vast majority retained the parental ploidy and exhibited allelic variations involving 1-60 recombined regions per cell with a length of ∼0.4-400 kb. Thus, beyond diploid laboratory strains, we demonstrated the proficiency of this natural non-GM and marker-free process to recombine a sterile and polyploid hybrid yeast, thus providing an unprecedented resource to screen improved traits.
Topics: Genome, Fungal; Homologous Recombination; Meiosis; Phenotype; Polyploidy; Saccharomyces cerevisiae
PubMed: 34062341
DOI: 10.1016/j.micres.2021.126789