Meng Zhang

Stepwise emergence of recombination suppression precedes fissiparous asexuality in the planarian Schmidtea mediterranea

This study shows that recombination suppression through chromosomal rearrangements preceded fissiparous asexuality in planarians, reducing the costs of asexuality.

Sex without crossovers mimics clonal reproduction in the holocentric plant Rhynchospora tenuis

This study shows that Rhynchospora tenuis undergoes obligate achiasmy in both sexes, leading to clonal-like inheritance through post-meiotic selection and TE-driven segregation distortion.

A holocentric pangenome links karyotype evolution to meiotic recombination

The paper links karyotype evolution to meiotic recombination by analyzing holocentric genomes and crossover patterns in Rhynchospora species.

Pangenome analysis reveals the evolutionary dynamics of repeat-based holocentromeres

The paper analyzes Tyba satellite DNA repeats and transposable elements in holocentric species to reveal evolutionary dynamics of repeat-based holocentromeres across a pangenome.

A comparative analysis of planarian genomes reveals regulatory conservation in the face of rapid structural divergence

This paper presents chromosome-scale genome assemblies and regulatory element annotations for planarians, revealing conservation of regulatory regions despite rapid structural divergence.

Meiotic recombination dynamics in plants with repeat-based holocentromeres shed light on the primary drivers of crossover patterning

The paper investigates meiotic recombination dynamics in a holocentric plant, finding that telomere-led pairing drives a U-shaped crossover distribution, independent of centromere organisation.