TY - JOUR
T1 - Control of meiotic recombination initiation
T2 - A role for the environment?
AU - Koren, Amnon
AU - Ben-Aroya, Shay
AU - Kupiec, Martin
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements This work was supported by grants by the Israel Science Foundation and the USA–Israel Binational Fund (BSF) to M.K. S.B.-A. would like to thank the Constantiner Institute for Molecular Genetics for its support.
PY - 2002/12
Y1 - 2002/12
N2 - Homologous recombination plays a central role during meiosis, ensuring the proper segregation of homologous chromosomes during the first meiotic division. In addition, meiotic recombination generates genetic variability upon which natural selection can act. The frequency of recombination is not evenly distributed throughout the genome: regions of high (hotspots) and low (coldspots) recombination can be found. Meiotic hotspots exhibit high levels of double-strand break formation and these breaks coincide with the upstream regions of genes. In many cases, binding of transcription factors has been shown to be required for hotspot activity. We review the current knowledge on the mechanisms that determine hotspot activity and propose a modified model to account for recent observations which show that recombination frequency at hotspots is sensitive to environmental conditions.
AB - Homologous recombination plays a central role during meiosis, ensuring the proper segregation of homologous chromosomes during the first meiotic division. In addition, meiotic recombination generates genetic variability upon which natural selection can act. The frequency of recombination is not evenly distributed throughout the genome: regions of high (hotspots) and low (coldspots) recombination can be found. Meiotic hotspots exhibit high levels of double-strand break formation and these breaks coincide with the upstream regions of genes. In many cases, binding of transcription factors has been shown to be required for hotspot activity. We review the current knowledge on the mechanisms that determine hotspot activity and propose a modified model to account for recent observations which show that recombination frequency at hotspots is sensitive to environmental conditions.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0036972347&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s00294-002-0340-9
DO - 10.1007/s00294-002-0340-9
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C2 - 12491006
AN - SCOPUS:0036972347
SN - 0172-8083
VL - 42
SP - 129
EP - 139
JO - Current Genetics
JF - Current Genetics
IS - 3
ER -