AUTHOR=Rafiei Nahid , Ronceret Arnaud 

TITLE=Crossover interference mechanism: New lessons from plants

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology

VOLUME=Volume 11 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cell-and-developmental-biology/articles/10.3389/fcell.2023.1156766

DOI=10.3389/fcell.2023.1156766

ISSN=2296-634X

ABSTRACT=Plants have been the source for understanding of several fundamental biological principles. It is well known that Gregor Mendel discovered the laws of Genetics in peas and that maize was used for the discovery of transposons by Barbara McClintock. Plant models are still useful for the understanding of general key biological concepts. In this article we will focus on discussing the recent plant studies that have shed new lights on the mysterious mechanisms of meiotic crossover (CO) interference, heterochiasmy, obligatory CO and CO homeostasis. The obligatory CO is necessary for the equilibrated segregation of the homologous chromosomes during meiosis. The tight control of different CO rate between male and female (heterochiasmy) allows to both maximize and minimize genome shuffling. An integrative model can now predict these observed aspects of CO patterning in plants. The mechanism proposed considers the Synaptonemal Complex as a canalizing structure that allows the diffusion of a class I CO limiting factor linearly on synapsed bivalents. The coarsening of this limiting factor along the SC explains the interfering spacing between COs. The model explains at once the observed coordinated processes between synapsis, CO interference, CO insurance and CO homeostasis. It also easily explains heterochiasmy just considering different male and female SC length. This mechanism is expected to be conserved in other species.