Recombination hotspot?

Did you know what recombination hotspot is? In the meiosis the crossing over and homologous recombination produce the recombination chromosome. But not all segments in chromosome are crossing over equally in the entire genome. Is not the matter of position from centromere, but some place in chromosome are more frequent to crossing over than other segment. So the distribution of crossing over entire chromosome in the genome not equal.

So let us go to definition. Recombination hotspots are small regions in the genome of sexually reproducing organisms that exhibit highly elevated rates of meiotic recombination. What the significance of recombination hotspot?

The cause of hotspots is currently unknown, however all hotspots so far characterized share similar morphology and are approximately 1.5 to 2.0 kb in width, which suggests a common causal process. Furthermore, recent studies have used patterns in linkage disequilibrium to identify over 25,000 hotspots in the human genome, suggesting that hotspots are a ubiquitous feature of the genome.

Scientist try to compare the recombination hotspot in human and our closely relative chimpanzees, Despite 99% DNA similarity between humans and our nearest relative, chimpanzees, the locations of DNA swapping between chromosomes, known as recombination hotspots, are almost entirely different. Perhaps this is explanation about how human and chimpanzees are different eventhough their different in DNA just 1%.

Some study suggest a minimum number of required recombinations for proper meiosis; if so,what genes or pathways monitor this process? If this global monitoring system fails, aneuploidy may result? The questions can be answer by ongoing research.