Article
Genetics & Heredity
Enrique J. Schwarzkopf, Omar E. Cornejo
Summary: PRDM9 drives recombination hotspots in certain mammals to ensure successful meiosis, potentially causing competition between meiotic transcription and recombination. The study suggests that PRDM9 might relocate recombination to avoid conflict between the two processes, with retrotransposons possibly playing a role in directing hotspots in the absence of other factors.
Review
Cell Biology
Nila M. Pazhayam, Carolyn A. Turcotte, Jeff Sekelsky
Summary: Proper number and placement of meiotic crossovers are crucial for chromosome segregation, with failures leading to aneuploidy and infertility. Meiotic crossovers are formed through homologous repair of double-strand breaks, and their placement is intricately patterned through interference, assurance, and suppression mechanisms. The mechanisms behind crossover patterning are largely unknown, with key players acting at different scales and considerable overlap between known patterning phenomena.
FRONTIERS IN CELL AND DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY
(2021)
Review
Plant Sciences
K. V. S. K. Arjun Chowdary, Ramswaroop Saini, Amit Kumar Singh
Summary: Meiosis is a special type of cell division that rearranges genetic material between generations. It involves crucial steps such as double strand break, homologous chromosome pairing, break repair, and crossover. The positioning of crossovers is influenced by various factors, especially epigenetic modifications. DNA methylation negatively regulates crossover frequency, and different chromosomal regions have different crossover rates.
PHYSIOLOGY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY OF PLANTS
(2023)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Ruqian Lyu, Vanessa Tsui, Wayne Crismani, Ruijie Liu, Heejung Shim, Davis J. McCarthy
Summary: Profiling gametes is important for constructing personalised haplotypes and meiotic crossover landscapes, but existing methods face challenges with low coverage and high processing requirements. In this study, we introduce efficient software tools for generating personalised haplotypes and calling crossovers in gametes, as well as constructing, visualising, and comparing individualised crossover landscapes. These tools achieve highly accurate results with user-friendly installation and efficient computation times.
NUCLEIC ACIDS RESEARCH
(2022)
Article
Genetics & Heredity
Reine U. Protacio, Tresor O. Mukiza, Mari K. Davidson, Wayne P. Wahls
Summary: The molecular basis for the effects of environmental conditions and speciation on meiotic recombination has been revealed through analysis of DNA sequence-dependent recombination hotspots in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Changing environmental conditions directly affect local rates of recombination through DNA site-dependent hotspots, which are controlled by environmental condition-responsive signal transduction networks. Different classes of hotspots independently modulate recombination rates and can range from being inactive to highly active in response to changing conditions. This provides a molecular mechanism for the dynamic changes in the global frequency distribution of meiotic recombination.
Article
Cell Biology
Benjamin Alleva, Kevin Brick, Florencia Pratto, Mini Huang, Rafael Daniel Camerini-Otero
Summary: PRDM9 protein plays a critical role in determining meiotic recombination sites in humans. The diversity of PRDM9 is important for understanding human population genetics, inheritance linkage patterns, and predisposition to genetic disease. The hypervariable zinc finger array of PRDM9 leads to potentially different DNA binding preferences among alleles.
FRONTIERS IN CELL AND DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Dipesh Kumar Singh, Qichao Lian, Stephanie Durand, Joiselle Blanche Fernandes, Aurelie Chambon, Aurelie Hurel, Birgit Walkemeier, Victor Solier, Rajeev Kumar, Raphael Mercier
Summary: Crossovers (CO) play an important role in the segregation of homologous chromosomal pairs during meiosis. In this study, we identify and investigate the function of the Arabidopsis thaliana HEIP1 homolog in meiotic crossover formation, and find that HEIP1 is highly conserved in eukaryotes. Our results demonstrate that HEIP1 is involved in the class I CO pathway, acting both before crossover designation and during the maturation step of crossover formation.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Stephanie Durand, Qichao Lian, Juli Jing, Marcel Ernst, Mathilde Grelon, David Zwicker, Raphael Mercier
Summary: This study proposes a model for crossover patterning, suggesting that the diffusion of HEI10 along the synaptonemal complex leads to a coarsening process that creates well-spaced crossover-promoting foci. The findings support this model and provide insight into the mechanistic basis of crossover control during meiosis.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2022)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Simon Obermeyer, Richard Stoeckl, Tobias Schnekenburger, Henna Kapoor, Thomas Stempfl, Uwe Schwartz, Klaus D. Grasser
Summary: In addition to transcriptional initiation, mRNA production is regulated during elongation, and various transcript elongation factors modulate the synthesis of mRNAs by RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) in the chromatin context. TFIIS is an elongation factor that stimulates the transcript cleavage activity of RNAPII, and its deficiency in Arabidopsis plants leads to increased sensitivity to heat stress and decreased expression of heat-induced genes. Further analysis reveals that TFIIS is required for proper RNAPII accumulation at specific nucleosomes and plays a role in reprogramming gene expression for establishing plant thermotolerance.
JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
(2023)
Review
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Hitoshi Kurumizaka, Tomoya Kujirai, Yoshimasa Takizawa
Summary: Chromatin compacts genomic DNA through nucleosome core particles, with versatile structure and dynamics for epigenetic regulation of genomic DNA. Histone variants in higher eukaryotes contribute to nucleosome diversity and play important roles in chromatin epigenetic regulation.
JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Chao Yang, Kostika Sofroni, Yuki Hamamura, Bingyan Hu, Hasibe Tuncay Elbasi, Martina Balboni, Lei Chu, Dagmar Stang, Maren Heese, Arp Schnittger
Summary: The ASY1 remodeling complex is assembled differently in terms of timing and location. PCH2 and COMET interact in the cytoplasm during early meiosis, but PCH2 is recruited by ZYP1 and brought to the ASY1-bound COMET to ensure the timely removal of ASY1 during chromosome synapsis.
NUCLEIC ACIDS RESEARCH
(2022)
Article
Plant Sciences
Shuying Yang, Chao Zhang, Yiwei Cao, Guijie Du, Ding Tang, Yafei Li, Yi Shen, Hengxiu Yu, Zhukuan Cheng
Summary: FIGNL1 functions as an inhibitor for non-homologous chromosome interaction and crossover formation during rice meiosis.
FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE
(2022)
Review
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Jinrong Min, Ke Liu
Summary: The dynamic regulation of chromatin structure by various modulators is crucial for downstream DNA processes, and understanding the 3D structures of these modulators in complex with nucleosome is essential for studying chromatin structure changes. Recent progress has been made in structural studies of selected chromatin modulators interacting with nucleosome.
CURRENT OPINION IN CHEMICAL BIOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Cell Biology
Roberto de la Fuente, Florencia Pratto, Abrahan Hernandez-Hernandez, Marcia Manterola, Pablo Lopez-Jimenez, Rocio Gomez, Alberto Viera, Maria Teresa Parra, Anna Kouznetsova, R. Daniel Camerini-Otero, Jesus Page
Summary: This study investigates the impact of disruptions in recombination and synapsis on the dynamics of epigenetic markers and transcriptional regulation during meiosis in knockout mice. Results show that impairment of recombination and synapsis alters the epigenetic marks and transcriptional regulation, suggesting a crucial role in the impairment of meiosis progression in mammals.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Laszlo Imre, Erfaneh Firouzi Niaki, Rosevalentine Bosire, Peter Nanasi, Peter Nagy, Zsolt Bacso, Nubar Hamidova, Yves Pommier, Albert Jordan, Gabor Szabo
Summary: This study explores the roles and interactions of polyamines (PAs) in the nucleus, specifically their effect on nucleosome stability. The results demonstrate that PAs, such as spermine, spermidine, and putrescine, have a strong destabilizing effect on nucleosomes in the millimolar concentration range. This effect is dependent on pH and salt concentration, and remains significant even at neutral pH. It was also found that PA treatment does not affect the integrity of genomic DNA. Furthermore, the study shows that PAs bind to DNA, as evidenced by the displacement of ethidium bromide.
ARCHIVES OF BIOCHEMISTRY AND BIOPHYSICS
(2022)