Molecular study uncovers distant sequence competition controlling meiotic double-strand breaks in yeast, suggesting locally limited factors dictate recombination.
Key Points
Determine whether local DNA sequence and chromatin accessibility alone control the location and frequency of meiosis-induced double-strand DNA breaks in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
Inserted an arg4-containing plasmid vector into multiple chromosomal locations across the yeast genome.
Analyzed meiosis-induced double-strand break patterns, meiotic recombination frequencies, and DNase I hypersensitivity profiles across insertion loci and in deletion constructs.
Insert-borne arg4 failed to develop double-strand breaks at sites typically broken at the native ARG4 locus despite maintaining identical DNase I hypersensitivity patterns.
Targeted deletion of active break sites from the inserted plasmid at HIS4 restored break formation at the insert-borne arg4 gene and in adjacent flanking genomic sequences.