Molecular Mechanism of Meiotic Recombination in Plants

Abstract

Meiosis is the crucial process in eukaryotic sexual reproduction in which one diploid germ cell divides to produce four haploid gametes. Several key events, including homologous chromosomes pairing, synapsis, recombination, and segregation occur sequentially during this process. However, although all these events are widely conserved in species, and they are controlled by both genetic and epigenetic factors, the detailed molecular mechanisms remain obscure up to now. As the major classical genetic materials, plants also have inherent advantages in meiotic studies. Furthermore, the genomes of several model plants have been sequenced which could greatly accelerate meiotic research using molecular tools. In this review, we give an overview of the discovery of meiotic genes mainly in Arabidopsis and rice, with a particular focus on their functions in homologous recombination.