Fungal meiosis and parasexual reproduction--lessons from pathogenic yeast.

Meiosis is an integral part of sexual reproduction in eukaryotic species. It performs the dual functions of halving the genetic content in the cell, as well as increasing genetic diversity by promoting recombination between chromosome homologs. Despite extensive studies of meiosis in model yeast, it is now apparent that both the regulation of meiosis and the machinery mediating recombination have significantly diverged, even between closely related species. To highlight this, we discuss new studies on sex in Candida species, a diverse collection of hemiascomycetes that are related to Saccharomyces cerevisiae and are important human pathogens. These provide new insights into the most conserved, as well as the most plastic, aspects of meiosis, meiotic recombination, and related parasexual processes.