Crossover formation between homologous chromosomes in meiosis: recent progress and emerging questions

DNA double-strand breaks can arise accidentally, or be part of programmed developmental processes, such as meiosis. Faithfull DSB repair occurs through the homologous recombination pathway and culminates in crossovers formation. Although crossovers formation has been investigated for decades, many of the underlying molecular processes remain unclear, largely due to the lack of biochemical studies.

The complexity also arises from the involvement of multi-tasking proteins that operate at various stages of homologous recombination, making the characterization of factors that are specific to the crossover formation step a challenging task.

However, the development of an experimental system that allow the separation of homologous recombination stages, couple with cutting edge technologies and biochemistry bring enabled us (1) to clarify the temporal and spatial control of crossover formation, and (2) to reconstitute key reactions of their formation in vitro.

In this presentation, I will present both past and recent stories, regarding crossover formation and will discuss my future research projects, which focuses on identifying and characterizing novel factors involved in the final processing of recombination intermediates during meiosis.

 

Publications : https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0009-0000-8949-2379