Analysis of meiotic recombination events near a recombination hotspot in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

The region of yeast chromosome III between the HIS4 and LEU2 genes has an unusually high frequency of meiotic recombination. In order to determine the pattern of cross-over and gene conversion events, we constructed a strain with a number of heterozygous markers in this 25-kb interval. We found that very high levels of recombination are localized to regions of DNA near HIS4. In addition, analysis of the patterns of co-conversion of adjacent markers suggests that there is more than one initiation site contributing to recombination of HIS4.