A thread about how meiotic recombination is directed to the genome in vertebrates, discovered by studying corn snakes. Work with @choge.bsky.social, @mollyprz.bsky.social, and co-authors: 1/n
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In the past 15 years, there has been immense progress in our understanding of how the locations of recombination events are specified in mammals, propelled by evidence from mouse & population genetics (e.g., https://tinyurl.com/2kz54ejd & https://tinyurl.com/4b4mpt89). 2/n
This body of work from many labs has revealed that in mammals, there are at least two strategies to direct double strand breaks (DSBs)—and thus recombination events—to the genome: 3/n
In mice and humans, DSBs occur almost exclusively where the protein PRDM9 binds DNA and makes two histone modifications, H3K4me3 and H3K36me3 (https://tinyurl.com/vjceh9wt). 4/n
In such species, repeated shifts in the binding affinity of PRDM9 remodel the DSB landscape and lead to the rapid evolution of recombination hotspots (e.g., https://tinyurl.com/m292knu6). 5/n
Knock-outs (KOs) for PRDM9 in mice and rat instead tend to recombine at promoter-like features (CpG islands, TSS) and other sites of H3K4me3 (https://tinyurl.com/yc6rt6c8, https://tinyurl.com/339yxf5f). But meiosis is compromised, especially in males. 7/n
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