Diversity and Determinants of Meiotic Recombination Landscapes

Despite the universal importance of meiotic recombination for generating genetic diversity, numbers and distribution of recombination events along chromosomes vary among species, genotypes within species, and between sexes. Some interspecies differences stem from the diversity of genome size and composition among eukaryotes. Large-genome species, such as humans and most crops, display recombination landscapes that are different from those of small-genome yeasts. Chromatin patterns, including histone modifications and DNA methylation, are also responsible for interspecies differences as well as differences between the sexes. Finally, despite the overall recombination pathway conservation, there are species-specific components that result in distinct recombination patterns. Consequently, characteristics that are defining for the recombination landscape and universally shared by all eukaryotes remain largely to be discovered.