High-Resolution Mapping of Crossover Events in the Hexaploid Wheat Genome Suggests a Universal Recombination Mechanism

During meiosis, crossovers (COs) create new allele associations by reciprocal exchange of DNA. In bread wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.), COs are mostly limited to subtelomeric regions of chromosomes, resulting in a substantial loss of breeding efficiency in the proximal regions, though these regions carry ∼60–70% of the genes. Identifying sequence and/or chromosome features affecting recombination occurrence is thus relevant to improve and drive recombination. Using the recent release of a reference sequence of chromosome 3B and of the draft assemblies of the 20 other wheat chromosomes, we performed fine-scale mapping of COs and revealed that 82% of COs located in the distal ends of chromosome 3B representing 19% of the chromosome length. We used 774 SNPs to genotype 180 varieties representative of the Asian and European genetic pools and a segregating population of 1270 F 6 lines. We observed a common location for ancestral COs (predicted through linkage disequilibrium) and the COs derived from the segregating population. We delineated 73 small intervals ( TIR-Mariner DNA transposon in recombinant intervals.