TY - JOUR T1 - Sex without crossing over in the yeast <em>Saccharomycodes ludwigii</em> JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2021.04.22.440946 SP - 2021.04.22.440946 AU - Ioannis A. Papaioannou AU - Fabien Dutreux AU - France A. Peltier AU - Hiromi Maekawa AU - Nicolas Delhomme AU - Amit Bardhan AU - Anne Friedrich AU - Joseph Schacherer AU - Michael Knop Y1 - 2021/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/04/23/2021.04.22.440946.abstract N2 - Meiotic recombination is a ubiquitous function of sexual reproduction throughout eukaryotes. Here we report that recombination is extremely suppressed during meiosis in the yeast species Saccharomycodes ludwigii. DNA double-strand break formation, processing and repair are required for normal meiosis but do not lead to crossing over. Although the species has retained an intact meiotic gene repertoire, genetic and population analyses suggest the exceptionally rare occurrence of meiotic crossovers. We propose that Sd. ludwigii has followed a unique evolutionary trajectory that possibly derives fitness benefits from the combination of frequent fertilization within the meiotic tetrad with the absence of meiotic recombination.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -