Chromosome dynamics in meiosis

Abstract

Meiosis encompasses a large number of dynamic processes. Some of them are biochemical, such as formation and repair of meiotic double-strand breaks, while others are physical in nature, such as homologous chromosome segregation in anaphase I. Plants have been used as model species in meiosis studies for over 80 years. However, the past decade brought a dramatic improvement in the understanding of meiosis in plants at the mechanistic level, thanks to the adoption of genetic and molecular biology techniques in chromosome research and new microscopy methods. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.