A Central Role for Cohesins in Sister Chromatid Cohesion, Formation of Axial Elements, and Recombination during Yeast Meiosis

Abstract

A multisubunit complex, called cohesin, containing Smc1p, Smc3p, Scc1p, and Scc3p, is required for sister chromatid cohesion in mitotic cells. We show here that Smc3p and a meiotic version of Scc1p called Rec8p are required for cohesion between sister chromatids, for formation of axial elements, for reciprocal recombination, and for preventing hyperresection of double-strand breaks during meiosis. Both Rec8p and Smc3p colocalize with chromosome cores independently of synapsis during prophase I and largely disappear from chromosome arms after pachytene but persist in the neighborhood of centromeres until the onset of anaphase II. The eukaryotic cell's cohesion apparatus is required both for the repair of recombinogenic lesions and for chromosome segregation and therefore appears to lie at the heart of the meiotic process.

Rec8 Guides Canonical Spo11 Distribution along Yeast Meiotic Chromosomes

“…Second, chromosome III exhibited little effect or even a slight promotion of DSB formation at some sites ( Figure 7B, regions indicated with light gray boxes). This observation is consistent with the previous report that rec8⌬ mutant has little effect on DSB formation at the YCR048W hot spot on chromosome III (Klein et al, 1999). Third, the deletion of REC8 in the rad50S mutant often exhibited altered DSB frequency in subtelomeric regions.…”

“…In addition, S. pombe rec8⌬ mutant shows a marked reduction of meiosis-specific DNA breakage by Rec12 (the S. pombe Spo11 homologue) in several intervals of the genome, but less in others (Ellermeier and Smith, 2005). However, in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the deletion of REC8 has reportedly no effect on meiotic DSB formation when observed at a couple of DSB sites on chromosome III (Klein et al, 1999). Thus, universal roles of Rec8 in the regulation of DSB formation have not been fully elucidated yet.…”

Interactions between Mei4, Rec114, and other proteins required for meiotic DNA double-strand break formation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

“…Sister chromatid axes are closely joined and, at pachynema, are synapsed along their lengths with the axes of the homologous sister pair to form the SC. Cohesins are associated with chromosome axes, whereas DSB formation is thought to occur preferentially in DNA sequences in the chromatin loops (Klein et al 1999;Blat et al 2002). Indeed, an inverse correlation has been observed between sites of DSB formation and sites enriched for cohesin binding (Gerton et al 2000;Blat et al 2002;Mieczkowski et al 2006).…”

“…2b, c, f, g). To address this issue in more detail, we compared localization of Mei4 and Rec114 with that of Rec8, a meiosis-specific cohesin subunit that is axis-associated prior to SC formation (Klein et al 1999;Blat et al 2002;Eijpe et al 2003). By this criterion as well, much of the Mei4 and Rec114 appeared not to be localized to chromosome axes (Fig.…”

Functional links between Drosophila Nipped-B and cohesin in somatic and meiotic cells

“…Cohesin colocalizes with SC proteins and is involved in homolog pairing, SC formation, and SC structure in diverse organisms (Bannister et al 2004;Chan et al 2003;Eijpe et al 2000;Khetani and Bickel 2007;Klein et al 1999;Pasierbek et al 2001Pasierbek et al , 2003Revenkova et al 2004;Xu et al 2005). The C(2)M protein, which contains kleisin motifs similar to those in Rad21 and which interacts with Smc3, is needed for SC formation and the coalescence of Smc1 and Smc3 into chromosome cores (Heidmann et al 2004;Khetani and Bickel 2007;Manheim and McKim 2003).…”