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The template choice decision in meiosis: is the sister important?

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Abstract

Recombination between homologous chromosomes is crucial to ensure their proper segregation during meiosis. This is achieved by regulating the choice of recombination template. In mitotic cells, double-strand break repair with the sister chromatid appears to be preferred, whereas interhomolog recombination is favoured during meiosis. However, in the last year, several studies in yeast have shown the importance of the meiotic recombination between sister chromatids. Although this thinking seems to be new, evidences for sister chromatid exchange during meiosis were obtained more than 50 years ago in non-model organisms. In this mini-review, we comment briefly on the most recent advances in this hot topic and also describe observations which suggest the existence of inter-sister repair during meiotic recombination. For instance, the behaviour of mammalian XY bivalents and that of trivalents in heterozygotes for chromosomal rearrangements are cited as examples. The “rediscovering” of the requirement for the sister template, although it seems to occur at a low frequency, will probably prompt further investigations in organisms other than yeast to understand the complexity of the partner choice during meiosis.

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Abbreviations

AE:

Axial element

BrdU:

Bromodeoxyuridine

BSCR:

Barrier to sister chromatid repair

CO:

Crossover

dHJ:

Double Holliday junction

DSB:

Double-strand break

DSBR:

DSB repair

FPG:

Fluorescent plus Giemsa

IHR:

Interhomolog recombination

NCO:

Non-crossover

SC:

Synaptonemal complex

SCE:

Sister chromatid exchange

SDSA:

Synthesis-dependent strand annealing

SEI:

Single-end invasion

ssDNA:

Single-strand DNA

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of Spain (BFU2008-00459/BMC) and the EU FP7 programme (Meiosys-KBBE-2009-222883) for financial support. We also apologise to all authors whose work could not be cited due to space limitations.

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  1. Departamento de Genética, Facultad de Biología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, C/José Antonio Novais 2, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    Mónica Pradillo & Juan L. Santos

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  1. Mónica Pradillo
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  2. Juan L. Santos
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Correspondence to Mónica Pradillo.

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Pradillo, M., Santos, J.L. The template choice decision in meiosis: is the sister important?. Chromosoma 120, 447–454 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00412-011-0336-7

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