Anne M Villeneuve
Stanford University, CA·Genetics
Sexual reproduction depends on meiosis, a special type of cell division that halves the number of chromosomes to make eggs and sperm. If chromosomes are sorted incorrectly, the resulting cells carry too many or too few chromosomes.
- Fields
Genetics
Biology
- Topics
meiosis
chromosome segregation
homologous chromosomes
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2028
What they work on
- Uncover the mechanisms that ensure every chromosome pair forms a crossover, an exchange that links matching chromosomes so they separate correctly, in C. elegans meiosis.
- Explore how different events and developmental transitions during meiosis are coordinated in time and space, using genetic, cytological and genomic approaches in Caenorhabditis nematodes.
- Investigate how meiosis-specific chromosome structures promote and regulate recombination and let chromosomes sense and respond to events at distant positions.
- Probe the basis of homolog recognition, how matching chromosomes find each other, using a new approach that includes a Caenorhabditis interspecies hybrid model.
More about the research
This condition, called aneuploidy, is a leading cause of miscarriages and birth defects in humans. To sort correctly, each pair of matching chromosomes (homologs) must become physically linked. Cells create these links by deliberately cutting their own DNA, producing double-strand breaks (DSBs), and repairing some of the breaks as crossovers (COs), exchanges between homologs. Because DNA breaks are dangerous, cells must balance the benefits of crossovers against the risks of breaking DNA.
Why it matters
Errors in chromosome inheritance are a leading cause of miscarriages and birth defects and also contribute to cancer development and progression. By revealing how cells organize and regulate the repair of DNA breaks and coordinate chromosome behavior during meiosis, this work could help explain why chromosome-sorting errors occur and how intact chromosomes are maintained.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Diana Libuda
University of Oregon, OR·Genetics
Test how specific meiotic chromosome structures regulate and respond to repair pathway and partner choice, using in vivo assays in C. elegans that directly detect use of the sister chromatid as a repair template during prophase I.
Amy MacQueen
Wesleyan University, CT·Genetics
Define how the N terminus of Zip1, a synaptonemal complex building block, works with the Zip3 SUMO ligase to promote crossover recombination in budding yeast, using structure-function genetic analysis.
Chenshu Liu
Lehigh University, PA·Genetics
Determine how the force-sensing ion channel Piezo works at the oocyte nuclear envelope to relay a signal that triggers cell death after synapsis fails in the C. elegans germline.
The school
Stanford University: 87 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 739 research doctorates a year.
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