Caenorhabditis elegans expresses five family members of the translation initiation factor eIF4E whose individual physiological roles are only partially understood. We report a specific role for IFE-2 in a conserved temperature-sensitive meiotic process. ife-2 deletion mutants have severe temperature-sensitive chromosome-segregation defects. Mutant germ cells contain the normal six bivalents at diakinesis at 20 degrees C but 12 univalents at 25 degrees C, indicating a defect in crossover formation. Analysis of chromosome pairing in ife-2 mutants at the permissive and restrictive temperatures reveals no defects. The presence of RAD-51-marked early recombination intermediates and 12 well condensed univalents indicate that IFE-2 is not essential for formation of meiotic double-strand breaks or their repair through homologous recombination but is required for crossover formation. However, RAD-51 foci in ife-2 mutants persist into inappropriately late stages of meiotic prophase at 25 degrees C, similar to mutants defective in MSH-4/HIM-14 and MSH-5, which stabilize a critical intermediate in crossover formation. In wild-type worms, mRNAs for msh-4/him-14 and msh-5 shift from free messenger ribonucleoproteins to polysomes at 25 degrees C but not in ife-2 mutants, suggesting that IFE-2 translationally upregulates synthesis of MSH-4/HIM-14 and MSH-5 at elevated temperatures to stabilize Holliday junctions. This is confirmed by an IFE-2-dependent increase in MSH-5 protein levels.