June 2026
Tegan Horan, a Research Associate in the Cohen lab, has published a new manuscript in the Oxford Academic’s Molecular Biology and Evolution journal that sheds new light on the process by which mammals complete chromosome exchanges. Per Tegan: “During the production of eggs and sperm, pairs of chromosomes exchange pieces of DNA in a process that both drives genetic diversity and helps ensure correct chromosome segregation.” In studying different strains of mice, Tegan and her team discovered that, in contrast to what was previously thought, the number of exchanges is not determined solely by the chromosome structure. “Instead, males and females differ in how efficiently they convert DNA repair events into chromosome exchanges, and a rarely-used backup pathway plays an unexpectedly important role in preventing chromosome segregation errors,” she explains. To learn more about this discovery, read her manuscript, “Molecular assessment of recombination processing across genetically diverse mouse strains reveals sexually dimorphic determinants of crossover distribution beyond chromosome length.”
