The new protein called SIX6OS1 is essential for the formation of sperm and ova.

A team headed by Alberto Martín Pendás, of Spains’s Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and Elena Llano, of the University of Salamanca, both pertaining to the Centre for Cancer Research (CIC-IBMCC), has identified the biological route through which a genetic polymorphism in an anonymous gene, whose function is unknown, affects the different rates of meiotic recombination in humans.

The results, published in the journal Nature Communications, have identified for the first time a new protein of the synaptonemal complex as being responsible for the differences in the meiotic recombination rates between individuals and suggests its possible involvement in human infertility.