SPO11 - SPO11 Initiator Of Meiotic Double Strand Breaks

Meiotic recombination and chromosome segregation require the formation of double-strand breaks (DSBs) in paired chromosome homologs. During meiosis in yeast, a meiotic recombination protein is covalently-linked to the 5' end of DSBs and is essential for the formation of DSBs. The protein encoded by this gene is similar in sequence and conserved features to the yeast meiotic recombination protein. The encoded protein belongs to the TOP6A protein family. Several transcript variants encoding different isoforms have been found for this gene, but the full-length nature of only two of them have been described. [provided by RefSeq, Jul 2008]