Peter Soerud Porsborg

Abstract Homologous recombination rearranges genetic information during meiosis to generate new combinations of variants. Recombination also causes new mutations, affects the GC content of the genome and reduces selective interference. Here, we use HiFi long-read sequencing to directly detect crossover and gene conversion events from switches between the two haplotypes along single HiFi-reads from testis tissue of humans, chimpanzees and gorillas as well as human sperm samples.

Abstract Gene conversions are broadly defined as the transfer of genetic material from a 'donor' to an 'acceptor' sequence and can happen both in meiosis and mitosis. They are a subset of non-crossover events and like crossover events, gene conversion can generate new combinations of alleles, erode linkage disequilibrium, and even counteract the mutation load by reverting germline mutations through GC-biased gene conversion.