[1] Recombination hotspots result from higher DNA break formation in these regions, and apply to both mitotic and meiotic cells.
This appellation can refer to recombination events resulting from the uneven distribution of programmed meiotic double-strand breaks.
[2] Meiotic recombination through crossing over is thought to be a mechanism by which a cell promotes correct segregation of homologous chromosomes and the repair of DNA damages.
[5] These fragile sites are thought to form hairpin structures on the lagging strand during replication from single-stranded DNA base-pairing with itself in the trinucleotide repeat region.
[6] A double stranded-break initiation site was identified in mice and yeast, located at a common chromatin feature: the trimethylation of lysine 4 of histone H3 (H3K4me3).
The PRDM9 gene encodes a histone methyltransferase in the Dsbc1 region, providing evidence of a non-random, genetic basis for recombination initiation sites in mice.
[3] Rapid evolution of the PRDM9 gene explains the observation that human and chimpanzees share few recombination hotspots, despite a high level of sequence identity.