Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comment
. 2025 Jan 7;23(1):e3002959.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002959. eCollection 2025 Jan.

Conserved features of recombination control in vertebrates

Linda Odenthal-Hesse  1
Affiliations
Comment

Conserved features of recombination control in vertebrates

Linda Odenthal-Hesse. PLoS Biol. .

Abstract

A recent study in PLOS Biology on the epigenetic recombination regulator PRDM9 in salmonid fish reveals that its function has been preserved across vertebrates for hundreds of millions of years, with rapidly evolving DNA-binding domains being a defining attribute.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author has declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Functional PRDM9 in salmonids has 4 hallmark features.
(A) (I) Recombination hotspots that share common motifs, (II) rapid evolution and high variability in its DNA binding domain, (III) a double positive epigenetic H3K4 and H3K36 trimethylation signal, (IV) positional variation in hotspots between populations. PRDM9-independent recombination occurs at promoters with characteristic H3K4 trimethylation, and the positions of hotspots show evolutionary stability. (B) As the distinctive characteristics of PRDM9 were previously only known to exist in mammals, the results of Raynaud and colleagues thereby move the evolutionary origin of the dynamic hotspot placement by the PRDM9 protein to an earlier time than previously believed, indicated by an arrow connecting the dashed lines in a phylogenetic tree of representative species, where PRDM9 losses identified by [4] are indicated by stars. Created in BioRender. ODENTHAL-HESSE, L. (2024) https://BioRender.com/l11h793.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

References

    1. Powers NR, Parvanov ED, Baker CL, Walker M, Petkov PM, Paigen K. The Meiotic Recombination Activator PRDM9 Trimethylates Both H3K36 and H3K4 at Recombination Hotspots In Vivo. PLoS Genet. 2016;12(6):e1006146. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1006146 ; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4928815. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Jeffreys AJ, Neumann R. Reciprocal crossover asymmetry and meiotic drive in a human recombination hot spot. Nat Genet. 2002;31(3):267–71. doi: 10.1038/ng910 . - DOI - PubMed
    1. Jeffreys AJ, Cotton VE, Neumann R, Lam KW. Recombination regulator PRDM9 influences the instability of its own coding sequence in humans. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013;110(2):600–5. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1220813110 ; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3545772. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cavassim MIA, Baker Z, Hoge C, Schierup MH, Schumer M, Przeworski M. PRDM9 losses in vertebrates are coupled to those of paralogs ZCWPW1 and ZCWPW2. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2022;119(9). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2114401119 ; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8892340. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hoge C, de Manuel M, Mahgoub M, Okami N, Fuller Z, Banerjee S, et al. Patterns of recombination in snakes reveal a tug-of-war between PRDM9 and promoter-like features. Science. 2024;383(6685):eadj7026. Epub 20240223. doi: 10.1126/science.adj7026 . - DOI - PubMed

MeSH terms

Substances

LinkOut - more resources