Meiotic Recombination Between Paralogous RBCSB Genes on Sister Chromatids of Arabidopsis thaliana

doi:10.1534/genetics.166.2.947

Meiotic Recombination Between Paralogous RBCSB Genes on Sister Chromatids of Arabidopsis thaliana

John G. Jelesko^a, Kristy Carter^a, Whitney Thompson^a, Yuki Kinoshita^b, and Wilhelm Gruissem^c
^a Plant Pathology, Physiology, and Weed Science Department, Fralin Biotechnology Center, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061-0346,
^b National Institute of Genetics, Agricultural Genetics, Mishima, Shizuoka, 411-8540, Japan
^c Institute of Plant Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zentrum, CH-8092, Zurich, Switzerland

Corresponding author: John G. Jelesko, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, West Campus Dr., Blacksburg, VA 24061-0346., jelesko{at}vt.edu (E-mail)

Communicating editor: B. BARTEL

Paralogous genes organized as a gene cluster can rapidly evolveby recombination between misaligned paralogs during meiosis,leading to duplications, deletions, and novel chimeric genes.To model unequal recombination within a specific gene cluster,we utilized a synthetic RBCSB gene cluster to isolate recombinantchimeric genes resulting from meiotic recombination betweenparalogous genes on sister chromatids. Several F₁ populationshemizygous for the synthRBCSB1 gene cluster gave rise to Luc⁺F₂ plants at frequencies ranging from 1 to 3 x 10^-6. A nonuniformdistribution of recombination resolution sites resulted in thebiased formation of recombinant RBCS3B/1B::LUC genes with nonchimericexons. The positioning of approximately half of the mapped resolutionsites was effectively modeled by the fractional length of identicalDNA sequences. In contrast, the other mapped resolution sitesfit an alternative model in which recombination resolution wasstimulated by an abrupt transition from a region of relativelyhigh sequence similarity to a region of low sequence similarity.Thus, unequal recombination between paralogous RBCSB genes onsister chromatids created an allelic series of novel chimericgenes that effectively resulted in the diversification ratherthan the homogenization of the synthRBCSB1 gene cluster.

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