Originally published as Genetics Published Articles Ahead of Print on January 16, 2005.

Genetics, Vol. 169, 1353-1367, March 2005, Copyright © 2005
doi:10.1534/genetics.104.036509

Infrequent Co-conversion of Markers Flanking a Meiotic Recombination Initiation Site in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Lea Jessop*, Thorsten Allers{dagger} and Michael Lichten*,1

* Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland 20892
{dagger} Institute of Genetics, University of Nottingham, Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham NG7 2UH, United Kingdom

1 Corresponding author: National Cancer Institute, Bldg. 37, Room 6124, 37 Convent Dr. MSC 4255, Bethesda, MD 20829-4255.
E-mail: lichten{at}helix.nih.gov

To study the mechanism of meiotic recombination in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we examined recombination in an interval where the majority of events are initiated at a single hotspot for DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs), with little or no expected contribution by outside initiation events. This interval contained infrequently corrected palindromic markers 300 bp to the left and 600 bp to the right of the DSB hotspot. Conversion of single markers occurred frequently, while conversion of both markers occurred rarely, and many of the tetrads in which both markers converted were the products of multiple events. These data indicate that most meiotic recombination intermediates are asymmetrically positioned around the initiating DSB, with a short (<300 bp) tract of heteroduplex DNA (hDNA) to one side and hDNA on the other side frequently extending 600 bp or more. One consequence of this asymmetry is the preferential concentration of crossovers in the vicinity of the initiating DSB.




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