The budding yeast "Saccharomyces cerevisiae" encodes an ortholog of the Bloom syndrome (BLM) protein that is designated Sgs1 (Small growth suppressor 1). Sgs1(BLM) is a helicase that functions in homologous recombinational repair of DNA double-strand breaks. The Sgs1(BLM) helicase appears to be a central regulator of most of the recombination events that occur during "S. cerevisiae" meiosis. During normal meiosis Sgs1(BLM) is responsible for directing recombination towards the alternate formation of either early non-crossovers or Holliday junction joint molecules, the latter being subsequently resolved as crossovers.