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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SynthHotSpot (Synthesizing Meiotic Crossover Hotspots in Arabidopsis)

Teaser

Summary

Meiosis is central to sexual reproduction in plants and animals, including humans. This is a specialised cell division that generates gametes that can fuse to form the next generation. Importantly, during meiosis recombination occurs which creates genetic diversity. This process is also of key important during crop breeding and improvement where it generates diversity in elite strains and allows farmers access to crops tailored to the environment. Importantly, recombination patterns are limiting in many important crops, which slows or hinders breeding. In this project we are seeking to understand and control meiotic recombination in a model plant species in order to generate knowledge useful in an applied setting.

Work performed

Since the beginning of the project we have developed novel methods to map patterns of meiotic recombination in the Arabidopsis genome. This has revealed the pattern of recombination hotspots and new information on what controls their location and activity. We are using this knowledge to advance the applied aim of controlling and creating new hotspots in order to allow breeders to tailor genetic variation in crop species.

Final results

We have developed new and sophisticated methods to map recombination and chromatin in plant genomes to the level of individual DNA base pairs. This has generated unprecedented insight into recombination not previously achieved in plants. This is generating new hypotheses with which we can test and advance the ability of scientists to target and control recombination.