Correlations between Synaptic Initiation and Meiotic Recombination: A Study of Humans and Mice

Meiotic recombination is initiated by programmed double strand breaks (DSBs), only a small subset of which are resolved into crossovers (COs). The mechanism determining the location of these COs is not well understood. Studies in plants, fungi, and insects indicate that the same genomic regions are involved in synaptic initiation and COs, suggesting that early homolog alignment is correlated with the eventual resolution of DSBs as COs. It is generally assumed that this relationship extends to mammals, but little effort has been made to test this idea.

Source: The American Journal of Human Genetics - December 31, 2015 Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Authors: Jennifer R. Gruhn, Nasser Al-Asmar, Rachael Fasnacht, Heather Maylor-Hagen, Vanessa Peinado, Carmen Rubio, Karl W. Broman, Patricia A. Hunt, Terry Hassold Tags: Article Source Type: research