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Meiotic segregation of a homeologous chromosome pair

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Abstract

During meiosis, the alignment of homologous chromosomes facilitates their subsequent migration away from one another to opposite spindle poles at anaphase I. Recombination is part of the mechanism by which chromosomes identify their homologous partners, and serves to link the homologs in a way that, in some organisms, has been shown to promote proper attachment to the meiotic spindle. We have built a diploid strain that contains a pair of homeologous chromosomes V': one is derived from Saccharomyces cerevisiae and one originates from S. carlsbergensis. Sequence analysis reveals that these chromosomes share 71% sequence identity. The homeologs experience high levels of meiotic double-stranded breaks. Despite their relatedness and their competence to initiate recombination, the meiotic segregation behavior of the homeologous chromosomes suggests that, in most meioses, they are partitioned by a meiotic segregation system that has been shown previously to partition non-exchange chromosomes and pairs with no homology. Though the homeologous chromosomes show a degree of meiotic segregation fidelity similar to that of other non-exchange pairs, our data provide evidence that their limited sequence homology may provide some bias in meiotic partner choice.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Janette Garrido for help in constructing the S. carlsbergensis chromosome V plasmids, Aaron Straight and Andrew Murray for reagents for GFP-tagging of chromosomes in yeast, and Robert Lahue for MSH2 and MSH3 disruption plasmids. David Kaback, Michael Lichten, Rhona Borts and members of the Dawson lab provided helpful comments on the project. The project was supported by NSF grant MCB-0078138. Experiments were carried out in compliance with US guidelines for genetic experimentation

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  1. R. Maxfield Boumil

    Present address: Department of Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, MA 02114, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology, Tufts University, 136 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02111, USA

    R. Maxfield Boumil, B. Kemp, M. Angelichio & D. S. Dawson

  2. Department of Genetics, Institute of Molecular Biology, University of Copenhagen, 1353 K, Copenhagen , Denmark

    T. Nilsson-Tillgren

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  1. R. Maxfield Boumil
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  2. B. Kemp
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  3. M. Angelichio
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  4. T. Nilsson-Tillgren
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  5. D. S. Dawson
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Correspondence to D. S. Dawson.

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Communicated by E. Cerdá-Olmedo

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Maxfield Boumil, R., Kemp, B., Angelichio, M. et al. Meiotic segregation of a homeologous chromosome pair. Mol Gen Genomics 268, 750–760 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00438-002-0796-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00438-002-0796-9

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