Haploidisation is the process of halving the chromosomal content of a cell, producing ahaploid cell. Within the normal reproductive cycle, haploidisation is one of the major functional consequences ofmeiosis, the other being a process ofchromosomal crossover that mingles the genetic content of the parental chromosomes.[1] Usually, haploidisation creates a monoploid cell from a diploid progenitor, or it can involve halving of a polyploid cell, for example to make a diploid potato plant from a tetraploid lineage of potato plants.
If haploidisation is not followed byfertilisation, the result is a haploid lineage of cells. For example, experimental haploidisation may be used to recover a strain of haploidDictyostelium from a diploid strain.[2] It sometimes occurs naturally in plants when meiotically reduced cells (usually egg cells) develop byparthenogenesis.
Haploidisation was one of the procedures used byJapanese researchers to produceKaguya, amouse which hadsame-sex parents; two haploids were then combined to make the diploid mouse.
Haploidisation commitment is a checkpoint in meiosis which follows the successful completion of premeiotic DNA replication and recombination commitment.[3]