title: Tinkering with meiosis.
abstract: Meiosis is at the heart of Mendelian heredity. Recently, much progress has been made in the understanding of this process, in various organisms. In the last 15 years, the functional characterization of numerous genes involved in meiosis has dramatically deepened our knowledge of key events, including recombination, the cell cycle, and chromosome distribution. Through a constantly advancing tool set and knowledge base, a number of advances have been made that will allow manipulation of meiosis from a plant breeding perspective. This review focuses on the aspects of meiosis that can be tinkered with to create and propagate new varieties. We would like to dedicate this review to the memory of Simon W. Chan (1974-2012) (http://www.plb.ucdavis.edu/labs/srchan/).
authors.affiliation: INRA, UMR1318,  Institut Jean-Pierre Bourgin, RD10, F-78000 Versailles,  France.
authors.forename: Wayne
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Crismani
authors.forename: Chloé
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Girard
authors.forename: Raphael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mercier
mesh_terms: D001947:Breeding; D003434:Crossing Over, Genetic; D055993:Germ Cells, Plant / Q000166:cytology; D008540:Meiosis / Q000235:genetics; D059828:Plant Cells / Q000378:metabolism*; D011995:Recombination, Genetic