The separation of germ cell populations from the soma is part of the evolutionary transition to multicellularity. Only genetic information present in the germ cells will be inherited by future generations, and any molecular processes affecting the germline genome are therefore likely to be passed on. Despite its prevalence across taxonomic kingdoms, we are only starting to understand details of the underlying micro‐evolutionary processes occurring at the germline genome level. These include segregation, recombination, mutation and selection and can occur at any stage during germline differentiation and mitotic germline proliferation to meiosis and post‐meiotic gamete maturation. Selection acting on germ cells at any stage from the diploid germ cell to the haploid gametes may cause significant deviations from Mendelian inheritance and may be more widespread than previously assumed. The mechanisms that affect and potentially alter the genomic sequence and allele frequencies in the germline are pivotal to our understanding of heritability. With the rise of new sequencing technologies, we are now able to address some of these unanswered questions. In this review, we comment on the most recent developments in this field and identify current gaps in our knowledge.

中文翻译：

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减数分裂及其他——了解塑造种系基因组的机制和进化过程

生殖细胞群与体细胞的分离是向多细胞进化过渡的一部分。只有生殖细胞中存在的遗传信息才会被后代遗传，因此影响生殖细胞基因组的任何分子过程都有可能被传递下去。尽管它在分类界中普遍存在，但我们才刚刚开始了解发生在种系基因组水平的潜在微进化过程的细节。这些包括分离、重组、突变和选择，可以发生在种系分化和有丝分裂种系增殖到减数分裂和减数分裂后配子成熟期间的任何阶段。从二倍体生殖细胞到单倍体配子的任何阶段作用于生殖细胞的选择可能会导致孟德尔遗传的显着偏差，并且可能比之前假设的更为广泛。影响并可能改变种系中基因组序列和等位基因频率的机制对于我们理解遗传性至关重要。随着新测序技术的兴起，我们现在能够解决其中一些尚未解答的问题。在这篇综述中，我们评论了该领域的最新发展，并确定了我们当前知识的差距。