What initiates recombination?
Many of the most common genetic recombination assays involve introduction of foreign DNA (by conjugation, transduction, or transformation) in which the DNA is broken. In these cases, recombination is initiated by the provision of a DNA end and so occurs at a conveniently high frequency. We know much less about what initiates recombination events between bacterial genes in situ. If recombination is initiated by strand breaks, the cellular processes that provide such breaks are unknown. Critical recombination intermediates: After recombination has been initiated, branched DNA structures including Holliday junctions are formed.
