IST Austria Lecture "Meiosis, recombination, and the origin of a species" by Peter Donelly
Channel: ISTAustria
Date: 11/12/2017

On December 7, 2017, Oxford University Professor Peter Donnelly gave his IST Lecture "Meiosis, recombination, and the origin of a species". Recombination is a key evolutionary mechanism, and plays an essential role in ensuring proper chromosomal segregation. In many species, meiotic recombination events occur in small recombination hotspots. In most mammals, the location of these hot spots is determined by PRDM9; this protein specifies the sites at which double-strand breaks occur, some of which are subsequently resolved as crossover events. Separately, Prdm9 is the only speciation gene so far identified in mammals, causing hybrid sterility between two subspecies of mice. It has been demonstrated that humanisation of the zinc finger array of PRDM9 completely rescues fertility, and that the infertility is due to PRDM9 not binding in the same position on the two homologous chromosomes in the hybrid mice. A novel approach to whole-genome amplification from ultra-low DNA inputs is used for whole-genome DNA sequencing of over 200 individual mouse sperm. In addition to providing an unprecedented fine-scale view of crossover resolution in a mammal, this provides a powerful tool with which to unpick various aspects of meiosis.