Understanding and Manipulating Meiotic Recombination: Inversions and Selection

This project will be supervised by Raphael Mercier at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research. 

Abstract: 

A hallmark of sexual reproduction is the shuffling of homologous chromosomes by meiotic crossovers (COs), generating diversity in the progeny. Despite a large excess of molecular precursors (DNA double-strand breaks at meiosis), the number of resulting COs is typically limited to one to three per chromosome pair, limiting genetic mixing. Further, CO are completely absent in some regions, such as large heterozygous genomic inversions, making these regions non reachable for plant breeding. However, mutants with enhanced recombination were identified in Arabidopsis thaliana in the past few years, opening the possibility to manipulate recombination rate.

Using a combination of genetics, microscopy, genomics and phenomics approaches, the present project aims to tackle two key questions.

1. What are the mechanisms of prevention and/or elimination of CO in heterozygous inversions?
2. Does an increased rate of COs affect phenotypic diversity and the response to selection?

This project focuses on mechanistic understanding of the recombination processes but will also have applied implications.  

Group homepage: https://www.mpipz.mpg.de/mercier

Key publication: Jing et al, Nat com 2025. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-60663-y