ahaha that's hilarious ! A question for BGPT ? (the biology chatgpt)

Oh I’m so glad! They say don’t meet your idole, but I wish I was downtown to have a chance to cross you in the street (without recognizing you, else you talked in a mic I guess!)

Enjoy!!!

Awww you’re in Paris! Welcome! Hope you enjoy your stay!

In Arabidopsis at least! And plants probably (maize shows the same trend, although the genome-wide effect hasn’t been look at yet)
Happy to see you like it 🤓

Always feels good to get independent confirmation right? Science rules! Thanks for your support Piotr!

Thank you Takashi! It’s been long in the work

Merci Yann!! Je suis super contente de ce papier!

Thanks Max! Now let’s hope it finds a good home 🤓

This work couldn’t have been done without the amazing #meiosis4ever community, who first supported the @agencerecherche.bsky.social
grant for this work

I am also very grateful for the guidance of @raphmercier.bsky.social, Eric Jencewski, Julie Clément, Mathilde Grelon, and Bertrand Llorente ❤️🧬

To read the full story, head out here:

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Any and all comments are appreciated !

Ok but so what do you think is happening?!

We propose a model in which presence of polymorphism is a major driver of recombination in A. thaliana, totally reshaping the crossover landscape, and competing with other rec. drivers that usually favor crossovers in the pericentromeric "HRZ" regions.

How is this happening ?

Recombination involves the invasion of an intact matrix by a broken DNA molecule. If the sequence of the two DNA molecules differes, this can create mismatches, recognized by the MMR (mismatch repair)/

The MMR protein MSH2 is required for COs to form in polymorphic regions.

What is fantastic about this discovery?

Not only do we turn cold region of the genome hot, but we also turn hot regions cold !

Case and point: the High-Recombination Zone (HRZ) that flanks the centeromeres in A. thaliana can be depleted of crossovers (see also Fig 1 above).

And what do we see ?

Always higher recombination in polymorphic regions (heterozygous, purple), than in non-polymorphic ones (homozygous, yellow).

This is true in male and female meiosis, across the genome, independently of other genomic features.

How did we figure this out?

We used Recombinant Inbred Lines, which genomes are a patchwork of two parental genomes. After many generations of inbreeding, these lines are now homozygous.

We backcrossed the RIL to its parents, and measured recombination genome-wide in both crosses.