Premium
AHP2 is required for bivalent formation and for segregation of homologous chromosomes in Arabidopsis meiosis
Author(s) -
Schommer Carla,
Beven Ali,
Lawrenson Tom,
Shaw Peter,
Sablowski Robert
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
the plant journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.058
H-Index - 269
eISSN - 1365-313X
pISSN - 0960-7412
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-313x.2003.01850.x
Subject(s) - arabidopsis , biology , homologous chromosome , meiosis , genetics , anaphase , bivalent (engine) , synapsis , prophase , meiocyte , chromosome segregation , microbiology and biotechnology , homologous recombination , mutant , chromosome , dna , gene , chemistry , organic chemistry , metal
Summary A new Arabidopsis meiotic mutant has been isolated. Homozygous ahp2‐1 ( Arabidopsis homologue pairing 2 ) plants were sterile because of failure of both male and female gametophyte development. Fluorescent in situ hybridisation showed that in ahp2‐1 male meiocytes, chromosomes did not form bivalents during prophase I and instead seemed to associate indiscriminately. Chromosome fragmentation, chromatin bridges and unbalanced segregation were seen in anaphase I and anaphase II. The ahp2‐1 mutation was caused by a T‐DNA insertion in an Arabidopsis homologue of meu13 + , which has been implicated in homologous chromosome pairing during meiosis in Schizosaccharomyces pombe . Our results suggest that meu13 + function is conserved in higher eukaryotes and support the idea that Arabidopsis , yeast and mouse share a pairing pathway that is not present in Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans .