Unleashing meiotic crossovers in crops

• Published in: Nature plants Vol. 4; no. 12; pp. 1010 - 1016
• Main Authors: Mieulet, Delphine, Aubert, Gregoire, Bres, Cecile, Klein, Anthony, Droc, Gaëtan, Vieille, Emilie, Rond-Coissieux, Celine, Sanchez, Myriam, Dalmais, Marion, Mauxion, Jean-Philippe, Rothan, Christophe, Guiderdoni, Emmanuel, Mercier, Raphael
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.12.2018; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 14/63; 45/22; 45/23; 45/70; 45/77; 631/208; 631/208/2491; 631/208/711; 64; Arabidopsis - genetics; Arabidopsis Proteins - genetics; ATPases Associated with Diverse Cellular Activities - genetics; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Cereal crops; Chromosomes, Plant - genetics; Crops, Agricultural - genetics; Crossing Over, Genetic; DNA Helicases - genetics; Gene Dosage; Genome editing; Human populations; Hybrids; Letter; Life Sciences; Microtubule-Associated Proteins - genetics; Mutation; Oryza - genetics; Pisum sativum - genetics; Plant breeding; Plant Proteins - genetics; Plant Sciences; RecQ Helicases - genetics; Solanum lycopersicum - genetics; Tomatoes; Vegetal Biology
• ISSN: 2055-0278; 2055-026X; 2055-0278
• DOI: 10.1038/s41477-018-0311-x

Improved plant varieties are important in our attempts to face the challenges of a growing human population and limited planet resources. Plant breeding relies on meiotic crossovers to combine favourable alleles into elite varieties 1 . However, meiotic crossovers are relatively rare, typically one to three per chromosome 2 , limiting the efficiency of the breeding process and related activities such as genetic mapping. Several genes that limit meiotic recombination were identified in the model species Arabidopsis thaliana 2 . Mutation of these genes in Arabidopsis induces a large increase in crossover frequency. However, it remained to be demonstrated whether crossovers could also be increased in crop species hybrids. We explored the effects of mutating the orthologues of FANCM 3 , RECQ4 4 or FIGL1 5 on recombination in three distant crop species, rice ( Oryza sativa ), pea ( Pisum sativum ) and tomato ( Solanum lycopersicum ). We found that the single recq4 mutation increases crossovers about three-fold in these crops, suggesting that manipulating RECQ4 may be a universal tool for increasing recombination in plants. Enhanced recombination could be used with other state-of-the-art technologies such as genomic selection, genome editing or speed breeding 6 to enhance the pace and efficiency of plant improvement. The genes FANCM , RECQ4 and FIGL1 affect meiotic recombination in Arabidopsis . By examining the effects of their orthologues on recombination in three crop species, the authors find that mutating RECQ4 could be a universal tool for increasing recombination.