Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Protein Function and Regulation in Agricultural Organisms, College of Life Sciences, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China
Zhiyu Chen
State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering, Institute of Plant Biology, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Gregory P. Copenhaver
Department of Biology and the Integrative Program for Biological and Genome Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Yingxiang Wang
Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Protein Function and Regulation in Agricultural Organisms, College of Life Sciences, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China
ABSTRACTHeterochromatin is an organizational property of eukaryotic chromosomes, characterized by extensive DNA and histone modifications, that is associated with the silencing of transposable elements and repetitive sequences. Maintaining heterochromatin is crucial for ensuring genomic integrity and stability during the cell cycle. During meiosis, heterochromatin is important for homologous chromosome synapsis, recombination, and segregation, but our understanding of meiotic heterochromatin formation and condensation is limited. In this review, we focus on the dynamics and features of heterochromatin and how it condenses during meiosis in plants. We also discuss how meiotic heterochromatin influences the interaction and recombination of homologous chromosomes during prophase I.
