Visual markers for detecting gene conversion directly in the gametes of Arabidopsis thaliana

Measuring meiotic gene conversion is important both because of its role in the fundamental mechanisms of meiotic recombination and because of its influence on linkage relationships and allelic diversity in the genome. Historically, gene conversion has been most thoroughly examined in fungal organisms through the use of tetrad analysis. Here we describe a method for using tetrad analysis in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana to detect and quantify gene conversion events - a resource unavailable in most other higher eukaryotic model systems.