Analysis of Meiotic Recombination and Homolog Interaction during Yeast Meiosis

During meiosis, one round of genome duplication is followed by two rounds of chromosome segregation, resulting in the halving of the genetic complement and the formation of haploid reproductive cells. In most organisms, intimate juxtaposition of homologous chromosomes and homologous recombination during meiotic prophase are required for meiotic success. Here we present a general protocol for visualizing chromosomal proteins and homolog interaction on surface-spread nuclei and a widely used protocol for analyzing meiotic recombination based on an engineered hotspot referred to as HIS4::LEU2.