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The mitochondrial genome of Chlamydomonas

Induction of minute colony mutations by acriflavin and their inheritance

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Summary

Treatment of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii with acriflavin induces, with nearly 100% efficiency, lethal minute colony mutants which are able to undergo only 8+9 mitotic divisions under photosynthetic conditions and almost no division in darkness. The minute mutation is inherited in a non-Mendelian biparental fashion and differs in this respect from the non-Mendelian uniparentally inherited mutations previously described in Chlamydomonas which are thought to reside in chloroplast DNA. The minute mutations may well be analogous to the respiratory deficient petite mutations which acriflavin induces in yeast and may arise from alterations in mitochondrial DNA.

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Communicated by Ch. Auerbach

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Alexander, N.J., Gillham, N.W. & Boynton, J.E. The mitochondrial genome of Chlamydomonas . Molec. gen. Genet. 130, 275–290 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00333866

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