Meiosis is a specialized cell division that is essential for sexual reproduction. Errors in meiosis are the leading cause of both infertility and birth defects. Most meiotic genes and their functions seem to be highly conserved among different species.

Human Enhancer of Invasion 10 (HEI10) was first identified in a functional genomic screen for novel human genes that influenced cell cycle progression and/or polarization. HEI10 functions as an E3 Ubiquitin ligase to regulate cell migration and invasion. Studies in mice revealed that mutation of HEI10 led to dramatic meiosis defects, indicating an important role of HEI10 during meiosis. However, the exact function of HEI10 in meiotic recombination remains unresolved.

Scientists in Dr. Zhukuan Cheng’s group from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, characterized the rice HEI10 homolog and demonstrated that HEI10 is required for normal crossover formation, but not for synapsis. HEI10 protein initially appears as distinct foci. Thereafter, the signals elongate along the SC and finally restrict to prominent foci that correspond to future chiasma sites. In addition, they also showed a close relationship of HEI10 with two other characterized ZMM proteins, ZEP1 and MER3. They proposed that the HEI10 exerts its effects in the recombination process through modification of diverse meiotic components.

This work has been published online on PloS Genetics (DOI:10.1371/journal.pgen.1002809), with Kejian Wang, Mo Wang and Ding Tang as the co-first authors. The research was funded by the Ministry of Sciences and Technology of China and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.