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Inheritance of plasmodial valine requirement in Physarum polycephalum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 April 2009

Jennifer Dee
Affiliation:
Department of Genetics, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, England
A. E. Wheals
Affiliation:
Department of Genetics, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, England
C. E. Holt
Affiliation:
Department of Genetics, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, England
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A defined medium for Physarum polycephalum plasmodia has been devised containing glutamic acid, glycine, methionine, biotin, thiamine, glucose, salts and haematin, which supports good growth on agar plates of many different strains. Tests on this medium have revealed a requirement for valine in some plasmodia formed by homothallic progeny (mthapt-l+) from the cross a (mt1apt-l+) × APT1 (mthapt-l−). The valine requirement was also inherited among heterothallic progeny of this cross and its segregation was followed in several heterothallic crosses. To explain the results it is proposed that valine synthesis requires the presence of dominant alleles at either of two unlinked loci and that only plasmodia homozygous for recessive alleles at both loci are valine dependent. In some crosses studied only one pair of alleles is segregating and valine requirement thus provides a useful genetic marker, and the first reported nutritional marker in P. polycephalum. The value of crosses with apt− mutants for both the detection and analysis of plasmodial markers is demonstrated and discussed.

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Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973