Dr Chris Morgan
Research Fellow BBSRC Discovery Fellow
Meiosis is the specialised type of cell division that produces the cells required for sexual reproduction (pollen and egg cells in plants).
During meiosis, chromosomes are ‘reshuffled’ in a process called meiotic recombination and this process is important for generating diversity within offspring.
However, meiotic recombination is exquisitely sensitive to changes in genome architecture (e.g. whole genome duplication) and environmental conditions (e.g. temperature) and these changes can lead to meiotic failure and infertility.
Chris uses a combination of molecular biology and cytogenetics to understand how meiosis has evolved to overcome some of these genomic and habitat-associated challenges in the model plant species Arabidopsis thaliana and Arabidopsis arenosa.
Selected Publications
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Morgan C,Fozard J,Hartley M,Henderson I,Bomblies K,Howard M (2021)Diffusion-mediated HEI10 coarsening can explain meiotic crossover positioning in ArabidopsisNature Communications (12)Publisher's version: 2041-1723
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Morgan C., Zhang H., Henry C. E., Franklin F. C. H., Bomblies K. (2020)Derived alleles of two axis proteins affect meiotic traits in autotetraploid Arabidopsis arenosa.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (117)Publisher's version: 0027-8424
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Lloyd A., Morgan C., Franklin F. C. H., Bomblies K. (2018)High and low temperatures increase class I meiotic crossovers in ArabidopsisGenetics (208)Publisher's version: 0016-6731