During meiosis, exchange of DNA segments occurs between paired homologous chromosomes in order to produce recombinant chromosomes, helping to increase genetic diversity within a species. This genetic exchange process is tightly controlled by the eukaryotic RecA homologs Rad51 and Dmc1, which are involved in strand exchange of meiotic recombination, with Rad51 participating specifically in mitot...

Saccharomyces cerevisiae Hop2 and Mnd1 are abundant meiosisspecific chromosomal proteins, and mutations in the corresponding genes lead to defects in meiotic recombination and in homologous chromosome interactions during mid-prophase. Analysis of various double mutants suggests that HOP2, MND1, and DMC1 act in the same genetic pathway for the establishment of close juxtaposition between homolog...

During meiosis, homologous recombination (HR) is essential to repair programmed DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs), and a dedicated protein machinery ensures that the homologous chromosome is favored over the nearby sister chromatid as a repair template. The homologous-pairing protein2/meiotic nuclear division protein1 (HOP2/MND1) protein complex has been identified as a crucial factor of meiotic ...

Recombination establishes the chiasmata that physically link pairs of homologous chromosomes in meiosis, ensuring their balanced segregation at the first meiotic division and generating genetic variation. The visible manifestation of genetic crossing-overs, chiasmata are the result of an intricate and tightly regulated process involving induction of DNA double-strand breaks and their repair thr...

Germline mutations in BRCA2 predispose to hereditary breast cancers. BRCA2 protein regulates recombinational repair by interaction with RAD51 via a series of degenerate BRC repeat motifs encoded by exon 11 (BRCA2(996-2113)), and an unrelated C-terminal domain (BRCA2(3265-3330)). BRCA2 is also required for meiotic recombination. Here, we show that human BRCA2 binds the meiosis-specific recombina...

During meiosis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the HOP2 and MND1 genes are essential for recombination. A previous biochemical study has shown that budding yeast Hop2-Mnd1 stimulates the activity of the meiosis-specific strand exchange protein ScDmc1 only 3-fold, whereas analogous studies using mammalian homologs show >30-fold stimulation. The HOP2 gene was recently discovered to contain a second ...

Upon entering a Regency-era ball, a Jane Austen heroine might ask herself, ‘‘Do I stay with my sister, or attempt to secure a partner?’’ The homologous recombination events that occur during meiosis need to make a similar decision, and how they do so is investigated in papers by Doug Bishop, Neil Hunter, and colleagues [1] and Nancy Hollingsworth and colleagues [2] in PLOS Genetics. The authors...

Eukaryotic cells encode two homologs of Escherichia coli RecA protein, Rad51 and Dmc1, which are required for meiotic recombination. Rad51, like E.coli RecA, forms helical nucleoprotein filaments that promote joint molecule and heteroduplex DNA formation. Electron microscopy reveals that the human meiosis-specific recombinase Dmc1 forms ring structures that bind single-stranded (ss) and double-...

In yeast, the DMC1 gene is required for interhomolog recombination, which is an essential step for bivalent formation and the correct partition of chromosomes during meiosis I. By using a reverse genetics approach, we were able to identify a T-DNA insertion in AtDMC1, the Arabidopsis homolog of DMC1. Homozygotes for the AtDMC1 insertion failed to express AtDMC1, and their residual fertility was...

Two BRCA2-like sequences are present in the Arabidopsis genome. Both genes are expressed in flower buds and encode nearly identical proteins, which contain four BRC motifs. In a yeast two-hybrid assay, the Arabidopsis Brca2 proteins interact with Rad51 and Dmc1. RNAi constructs aimed at silencing the BRCA2 genes at meiosis triggered a reproducible sterility phenotype, which was associated with ...