Chromosome pairing is an essential meiotic event that ensures faithful haploidization and recombination of the genome. Pairing of homologous chromosomes is facilitated by telomere-led chromosome movements and formation of a meiotic bouquet, where telomeres cluster to one pole of the nucleus. In metazoans, telomere clustering is dynein and microtubule dependent and requires Sun1, an inner nuclea...

Background: Maternal mRNA degradation is a selective process that occurs in waves corresponding to important developmental transitions such as resumption of meiosis, fertilization and zygotic genome activation. It has been demonstrated that the number, position, and combination of 3 UTR cis-acting elements interacting with trans-acting protein factors regulate translation and mRNA stability. Ou...

We demonstrate the involvement of suppressor of meiotic silencing-2 (sms-2(+)), a Neurospora gene coding for an Argonaute-like protein, in meiotic silencing and normal sexual development.

background: the study of specific genes expressed in the testis is important to understanding testis development and function. spermatogenesis is an attractive model for the study of gene expression during germ cell differentiation. spermatogenesis associated-19 (spata-19) is a recently-identified important spermatogenesis-related gene specifically expressed in testis. its protein product is in...

Meiotic recombination requires pairing of homologous chromosomes, the mechanisms of which remain largely unknown. When pairing occurs during meiotic prophase in fission yeast, the nucleus oscillates between the cell poles driven by astral microtubules. During these oscillations, the telomeres are clustered at the spindle pole body (SPB), located at the leading edge of the moving nucleus and the...

In single-cell eukaryotes the pathways that monitor nutrient availability are central to initiating the meiotic program and gametogenesis. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae an essential step in the transition to the meiotic cycle is the down-regulation of the nutrient-sensitive target of rapamycin complex 1 (TORC1) by the increased minichromosome loss 1/ GTPase-activating proteins toward Rags 1 (Iml1...

During spermatogenesis in mammals and in Drosophila melanogaster, male germ cells develop in a series of essential developmental processes. This includes differentiation from a stem cell population, mitotic amplification, and meiosis. In addition, post-meiotic germ cells undergo a dramatic morphological reshaping process as well as a global epigenetic reconfiguration of the germ line chromatin-...

Accurate estimates of mutation rates provide critical information to analyze genome evolution and organism fitness. We used whole-genome DNA sequencing, pulse-field gel electrophoresis, and comparative genome hybridization to determine mutation rates in diploid vegetative and meiotic mutation accumulation lines of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The vegetative lines underwent only mitotic divisions w...