Recombination in an isochromosome preferentially occurs between cis isochromatids

An isochromosome has identical arms attached to the same centromere. At the pachytene stage of meiosis, it has four isochromatids and recombination can occur either between cis isochromatids (attached to the same half-centromere) or trans isochromatids (attached to different half-centromeres). Normally such recombination cannot be detected because all four chromatids are homogenetic (arose from misdivision of a centromere to which genetically identical sister chromatids were attached). We isolated an isochromosome of wheat that is heterogenetic for the distal 64% of the long arm. The heterogenetic isochromosome was recovered from the progeny of a cross between Triticum aestivum cv. Chinese Spring containing an isochromosome for the long arm of chromosome 5B (i5BL) and a disomic substitution line of Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccoides chromosome 5B in Chinese Spring wheat. New recombinants were produced when the two arms of i5BLrec paired at metaphase I of meiosis. Only trans isochromatid exchanges led to some homozygous loci in i5BLrec, whereas exchanges between cis isochromatids resulted in heterozygosity at all loci similar to the parental type. There was an average frequency of 0.87 chiasmata per pollen mother cell for the heterogenetic i5BL, which will result in 0.44 cis and 0.44 trans isochromatid exchanges, assuming that both are occurring at the same frequency. The average crossover frequency based on recombination between trans isochromatid exchange detected by restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis in 98 plants was 0.29. This observed value is significantly lower (P<0.01) than the value of 0.44 as expected from chiasmata counts. Our study provides the first experimental evidence that crossovers preferentially occur between cis isochromatids rather than trans isochromatids.