Hed1 promotes meiotic crossover formation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Homologous recombination (HR) occurs between homologous chromosomes and is significantly involved in programmed double-strand breaks (DSB) repair. Activation of two recombinases, Rad51 and Dmc1, is essential for an inter-homolog bias during meiosis. Rad51 participates in both mitotic and meiotic recombination, and its strand exchange activity is regulated by an inhibitory factor during meiosis. Thus, activities of Rad51 and Dmc1 are coordinated to promote homolog bias. It has been reported that Hed1, a meiosis-specific protein in budding yeast, regulates Rad51-dependent recombination activity. Here we investigated the role of Hed1 in meiotic recombination by ectopic expression of the protein after pre-meiotic replication in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. DNA physical analysis revealed that the over-expression of Hed1 delays the DSB-to-Joint Molecule (JM) transition and promotes inter-homolog JM formation. The study indicates a possible role of Hed1 in controlling the strand exchange activity of Rad51 and, eventually, the meiotic crossover formation.

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