Allelic and ectopic recombination between Ty elements in yeast.

Allelic and nonallelic (ectopic) recombination events were analyzed in a set of isogenic strains that carry marked Ty elements. We found that allelic recombination between Ty elements occurred at normal frequencies both in meiosis and mitosis. The marked Ty elements were involved in a large variety of different types of ectopic recombination and this variety was greater in mitosis than in meiosis. Allelic and ectopic recombination events occurred at similar frequencies in mitosis, but allelic recombination predominated in meiosis. Some of the types of ectopic mitotic recombination indicated the common occurrence of concerted recombination events. The length of homology represented by a delta element (330 bp) seemed to be sufficient for some types of mitotic and meiotic recombination.