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Molecular and Cellular Biology, October 2005, p. 9054-9062, Vol. 25, No. 20
0270-7306/05/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/MCB.25.20.9054-9062.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Natural Meiotic Recombination Hot Spots in the Schizosaccharomyces pombe Genome Successfully Predicted from the Simple Sequence Motif M26{dagger}

Walter W. Steiner1,2* and Gerald R. Smith1

Division of Basic Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, 1100 Fairview Ave. North, A1-162, Seattle, Washington 98109,1 Department of Biology, P.O. Box 2032, Niagara University, Lewiston, New York 141092

Received 13 June 2005/ Returned for modification 11 July 2005/ Accepted 22 July 2005

The M26 hot spot of meiotic recombination in Schizosaccharomyces pombe is the eukaryotic hot spot most thoroughly investigated at the nucleotide level. The minimum sequence required for M26 activity was previously determined to be 5'-ATGACGT-3'. Originally identified by a mutant allele, ade6-M26, the M26 heptamer sequence occurs in the wild-type S. pombe genome approximately 300 times, but it has been unclear whether any of these are active hot spots. Recently, we showed that the M26 heptamer forms part of a larger consensus sequence, which is significantly more active than the heptamer alone. We used this expanded sequence as a guide to identify a smaller number of sites most likely to be active hot spots. Ten of the 15 sites tested showed meiotic DNA breaks, a hallmark of recombination hot spots, within 1 kb of the M26 sequence. Among those 10 sites, one occurred within a gene, cds1+, and hot spot activity of this site was confirmed genetically. These results are, to our knowledge, the first demonstration in any organism of a simple, defined nucleotide sequence accurately predicting the locations of natural meiotic recombination hot spots. M26 may be the first example among a diverse group of simple sequences that determine the distribution, and hence predictability, of meiotic recombination hot spots in eukaryotic genomes.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Biology, P.O. Box 2032, Niagara University, Lewiston, NY 14109. Phone: (716) 286-8248. Fax: (716) 286-8254. E-mail: wsteiner{at}niagara.edu.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://mcb.asm.org/.

Molecular and Cellular Biology, October 2005, p. 9054-9062, Vol. 25, No. 20
0022-538X/05/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/MCB.25.20.9054-9062.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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