The resistance of DMC1 D-loops to dissociation may account for the DMC1 requirement in meiosis

The ubiquitously expressed Rad51 recombinase and the meiosis-specific Dmc1 recombinase promote the formation of strand-invasion products (D-loops) between homologous molecules. Strand-invasion products are processed by either the double-strand break repair (DSBR) or synthesis-dependent strand annealing (SDSA) pathway. D-loops destined to be processed by SDSA need to dissociate, producing non-crossovers, and those destined for DSBR should resist dissociation to generate crossovers. The mechanism that channels recombination intermediates into different homologous-recombination pathways is unknown. Here we show that D-loops in a human DMC1-driven reaction are substantially more resistant to dissociation by branch-migration proteins such as RAD54 than those formed by RAD51. We propose that the intrinsic resistance to dissociation of DMC1 strand-invasion intermediates may account for why DMC1 is essential to ensure the proper segregation of chromosomes in meiosis.