Nuclear RNA degradation pathways are highly conserved across eukaryotes and play 
important roles in RNA quality control. Key substrates for exosomal degradation 
include aberrant functional RNAs and cryptic unstable transcripts (CUTs). It has 
recently been reported that the nuclear exosome is inactivated during meiosis in 
budding yeast through degradation of the subunit Rrp6, leading to the 
stabilisation of a subset of meiotic unannotated transcripts (MUTs) of unknown 
function. We have analysed the activity of the nuclear exosome during meiosis by 
deletion of TRF4, which encodes a key component of the exosome targeting complex 
TRAMP. We find that TRAMP mutants produce high levels of CUTs during meiosis 
that are undetectable in wild-type cells, showing that the nuclear exosome 
remains functional for CUT degradation, and we further report that the meiotic 
exosome complex contains Rrp6. Indeed Rrp6 over-expression is insufficient to 
suppress MUT transcripts, showing that the reduced amount of Rrp6 in meiotic 
cells does not directly cause MUT accumulation. Lack of TRAMP activity 
stabilises ∼ 1600 CUTs in meiotic cells, which occupy 40% of the binding 
capacity of the nuclear cap binding complex (CBC). CBC mutants display defects 
in the formation of meiotic double strand breaks (DSBs), and we see similar 
defects in TRAMP mutants, suggesting that a key function of the nuclear exosome 
is to prevent saturation of the CBC complex by CUTs. Together, our results show 
that the nuclear exosome remains active in meiosis and has an important role in 
facilitating meiotic recombination.