Seventeen complementation groups of mutations decreasing meiotic recombination in Schizosaccharomyces pombe

We have analyzed 43 recessive mutations reducing meiotic intragenic recombination in Schizosaccharomyces pombe. These mutations were isolated by a screen for reduced plasmid-by-chromosome recombination at the ade6 locus. Sixteen of the mutations define 10 new complementation groups, bringing to 17 the number of genes identified to be involved in meiotic recombination. The mutations were grouped into three discrete classes depending on the severity of the recombination deficiency in crosses involving the ade6-M26 recombination hotspot. Class I mutations caused at least a 1000-fold reduction in M26-stimulated intragenic recombination at the ade6 locus. Class II mutations reduced M26-stimulated recombination approximately 100-fold. Class III mutations caused a 3-10-fold reduction in either M26-stimulated or non-hotspot recombination. We obtained multiple alleles of class I and class II mutations, suggesting that we may be nearing saturation for mutations of this type. As a first step toward mapping, we used mitotic segregation to assign fourteen of the rec genes to chromosomes. Mutations in the six rec genes tested also caused a decrease in intragenic recombination at the ura4 locus; five of these mutations also reduced intergenic recombination between the pro2 and arg3 genes. These results indicate that these multiple rec gene products are required for high level meiotic recombination throughout the S. pombe genome.