Abstract
Rad51 paralogs belong to the Rad52 epistasis group proteins and are involved in homologous recombination (HR), especially the assembly and stabilization of Rad51, which is a RecA homolog in eukaryotes. Recent data suggest that human Rad51 paralogs are also important for the late stage of HR. These paralogs are required for DNA repair and chromosome stability, although little is known about the function in meiotic recombination. We previously reported characterization of RAD51 paralogous genes from Arabidopsis (AtRAD51B, AtRAD51C, AtRAD51D, AtXRCC2, and AtXRCC3). To gain the knowledge for the function of Rad51 paralogs in meiotic and somatic cells, we here characterized T-DNA insertion mutants of AtRAD51B, AtRAD51C and AtXRCC2 genes. We found that AtRad51C is essential to achieve meiosis, but AtRad51B and AtXrcc2 are not crucial for meiosis. Further analysis of Rad51 paralogs in double-strand breaks repair will be discussed.
