A conserved filamentous assembly underlies the structure of the meiotic chromosome axis.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 30657449.
- Also identified by DOI 10.7554/eLife.40372 and PMC identifier 6349405.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The meiotic chromosome axis plays key roles in meiotic chromosome organization and recombination, yet the underlying protein components of this structure are highly diverged. Here, we show that 'axis core proteins' from budding yeast (Red1), mammals (SYCP2/SYCP3), and plants (ASY3/ASY4) are evolutionarily related and play equivalent roles in chromosome axis assembly. We first identify 'closure motifs' in each complex that recruit meiotic HORMADs, the master regulators of meiotic recombination. We next find that axis core proteins form homotetrameric (Red1) or heterotetrameric (SYCP2:SYCP3 and ASY3:ASY4) coiled-coil assemblies that further oligomerize into micron-length filaments. Thus, the meiotic chromosome axis core in fungi, mammals, and plants shares a common molecular architecture, and likely also plays conserved roles in meiotic chromosome axis assembly and recombination control.
Medical subject headings
- Arabidopsis
- Chromosomes
- Meiosis
- Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins