PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Qichao Lian
AU  - Victor Solier
AU  - Birgit Walkemeier
AU  - Bruno Huettel
AU  - Korbinian Schneeberger
AU  - Raphael Mercier
TI  - The megabase-scale crossover landscape is independent of sequence divergence
AID  - 10.1101/2022.01.10.474936
DP  - 2022 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2022.01.10.474936
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/01/11/2022.01.10.474936.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/01/11/2022.01.10.474936.full
AB  - Meiotic recombination frequency varies along chromosomes and strongly correlates with sequence divergence. However, the causality underlying this correlation is unclear. To untangle the relationship between recombination landscapes and polymorphisms, we characterized the genome-wide recombination landscape in the absence of polymorphisms, using Arabidopsis thaliana homozygous inbred lines in which a few hundred genetic markers were introduced through mutagenesis. We found that megabase-scale recombination landscapes in inbred lines are strikingly similar to the recombination landscapes in hybrids, with the sole exception of heterozygous large rearrangements where recombination is prevented locally. In addition, we found that the megabase-scale recombination landscape can be accurately predicted by chromatin features. Our results show that polymorphisms are not causal for the shape of the megabase-scale recombination landscape, rather, favor alternative models in which recombination and chromatin shape sequence divergence across the genome.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.