Abstract
This chapter discusses the genetic control of meiosis. Meiosis presents a seemingly paradoxical situation in which universality and uniqueness are harmoniously combined. All organisms, irrespective of their evolved complexity, meiotically reduce the chromosome number on beginning sexual reproduction. Genetic recombination and the associated cytological phenomena—chromosome pairing and formation of the synaptonemal complex (sc) and chiasmata—all occur in meiotically dividing cells. The majority of genes do not turn the meiotic process entirely off; they rather interfere with its distinct steps. These comparisons of meiotic mutants make it possible to distinguish between primary and secondary abnormalities caused by mutations in different genes. Other meiotic mutants can serve as points plotted on a genetic flowchart depicting the sequential switching on of meiotic genes. Chromosome behavior appears to be controlled at two levels. There seems to exist a group of genes controlling the behavior of all the chromosomes in the nucleus and another group that controls the behavior of single chromosomes.
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