A conserved filamentous assembly underlies the structure of the meiotic chromosome axis
Alan MV West,
Scott C Rosenberg,
Sarah N Ur,
Madison K Lehmer,
Qiaozhen Ye,
Götz Hagemann,
Iracema Caballero,
Isabel Usón,
Amy J MacQueen,
Franz Herzog,
Kevin D Corbett
Affiliations
Alan MV West
Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, United States; Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, United States
Scott C Rosenberg
Department of Chemistry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, United States
Sarah N Ur
Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, United States
Madison K Lehmer
Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, United States
Qiaozhen Ye
Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, United States
Götz Hagemann
Gene Center and Department of Biochemistry, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany
Iracema Caballero
Crystallographic Methods, Institute of Molecular Biology of Barcelona (IBMB-CSIC), Barcelona, Spain
Isabel Usón
Crystallographic Methods, Institute of Molecular Biology of Barcelona (IBMB-CSIC), Barcelona, Spain; Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain
Amy J MacQueen
Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Wesleyan University, Middletown, United States
Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, United States; Department of Chemistry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, United States; Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, La Jolla, United States
The meiotic chromosome axis plays key roles in meiotic chromosome organization and recombination, yet the underlying protein components of this structure are highly diverged. Here, we show that ‘axis core proteins’ from budding yeast (Red1), mammals (SYCP2/SYCP3), and plants (ASY3/ASY4) are evolutionarily related and play equivalent roles in chromosome axis assembly. We first identify ‘closure motifs’ in each complex that recruit meiotic HORMADs, the master regulators of meiotic recombination. We next find that axis core proteins form homotetrameric (Red1) or heterotetrameric (SYCP2:SYCP3 and ASY3:ASY4) coiled-coil assemblies that further oligomerize into micron-length filaments. Thus, the meiotic chromosome axis core in fungi, mammals, and plants shares a common molecular architecture, and likely also plays conserved roles in meiotic chromosome axis assembly and recombination control.
