title: Mammalian meiotic recombination hot spots.
abstract: Our understanding of the details of mammalian meiotic recombination has recently advanced significantly. Sperm typing technologies, linkage studies, and computational inferences from population genetic data have together provided information in unprecedented detail about the location and activity of the sites of crossing-over in mice and humans. The results show that the vast majority of meiotic recombination events are localized to narrow DNA regions (hot spots) that constitute only a small fraction of the genome. The data also suggest that the molecular basis of hot spot activity is unlikely to be strictly determined by specific DNA sequence motifs in cis. Further molecular studies are needed to understand how hot spots originate, function and evolve.
authors: Molecular and Computational Biology Program, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-2910, USA. arnheim@usc.edu
authors: Norman
authors: N
authors: Arnheim
authors: Peter
authors: P
authors: Calabrese
authors: Irene
authors: I
authors: Tiemann-Boege
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D000818:Animals; D004247:DNA / Q000235:genetics; D005785:Gene Conversion; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008540:Meiosis; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D011995:Recombination, Genetic; D013094:Spermatozoa / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D004247:DNA