Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UNIPROT:Q9UIJ5 (Rec)
 58,342 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Generation of meiotic crossovers in many eukaryotes requires the elimination of anti-crossover activities by using the Msh4-Msh5 heterodimer to block helicases. Msh4 and Msh5 have been lost from the flies Drosophila and Glossina, but we identified a complex of minichromosome maintenance (MCM) proteins that functionally replace Msh4-Msh5. We found that REC, an ortholog of MCM8 that evolved under strong positive selection in flies, interacts with MEI-217 and MEI-218, which arose from a previously undescribed metazoan-specific MCM protein. Meiotic crossovers were reduced in Drosophila rec, mei-217, and mei-218 mutants; however, removal of the Bloom syndrome helicase (BLM) ortholog restored crossovers. Thus, MCMs were co-opted into a novel complex that replaced the meiotic pro-crossover function of Msh4-Msh5 in flies.
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PMID:Evolution of an MCM complex in flies that promotes meiotic crossovers by blocking BLM helicase. 2322 58