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The license to pair: Identification of meiotic pairing sites inDrosophila

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Abstract

Sites for pairing and segregation of achiasmatic bivalents have been characterized in both male and female meiosis inDrosophila melanogaster. The major sex chromosome pairing site in male meiosis corresponds to the intergenic spacer repeats of the rDNA arrays, which are located in the heterochromatin of theX andY. The sex chromosome pairing sites in females are also heterochromatic, but involve different repeated sequences. In males, weak pairing sites are widely distributed along euchromatin but not heterochromatin of chromosome2, an autosome. One strong site for male meiotic pairing has been identified on chromosome2; it overlaps with thehis locus, which contains the repetitive structural genes for the histones. In females the sites for pairing of chromosome4, another autosome, are restricted to the heterochromatin. Thus for both sex chromosomes and autosomes, sites for achiasmatic pairing are heterochromatic in females but euchromatic (except for the rDNA) in males. The possible roles of sequence repetition and of transcription in chromosome pairing are discussed.

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  1. Department of Biochemistry and Cellular and Molecular Biology, University of Tennessee, 37996, Knoxville, TN, USA

    Bruce D. McKee

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  1. Bruce D. McKee
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McKee, B.D. The license to pair: Identification of meiotic pairing sites inDrosophila . Chromosoma 105, 135–141 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02509494

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02509494

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