BIOCHEMICAL MUTANTS IN THE SMUT FUNGUS USTILAGO MAYDIS

作者：David D. Perkins · 发表于：Genetics · 年份：1949 · DOI：10.1093/genetics/34.5.607 · 被引用次数：553 · 研究领域：Plant Pathogens and Fungal Diseases、Yeasts and Rust Fungi Studies

HE usefulness of growth-factor mutants for genetic studies was demon-T strated by BEADLE and TATUM in 1941, using the mold Neurospora.Although a number of other microorganisms have since been employed in studies of a similar nature, there has until recently been no instance of the use of biochemical mutants in sexual fungi other than Ascomycetes.This paper is concerned with the production, characterization and inheritance of requirements for essential metabolites in a parasitic basidiomycete, the smut-fungus of corn, Uslilago maydis (DC.)Cda.(Ustilago zeae, cf.STEVENSON and JOHN-SON 1944).The smut-fungi, comprising the order Ustilaginales, are characterized by the production of smut-spores or chlamydospores which constitute the zygotes and are typically the only diploid cella in the life cycle.During chlamydospore germination, meiosis occurs in a short hypha, the promycelium, from which haploid cells, the sporidia, are budded off.I n the family Ustilaginaceae these products of the reduction divisions are arranged in a linear order that reflects the events of meiosis.The sporidia multiply saprophytically as discrete, yeastlike cells.I n certain environmental circumstances monocaryotic, mycelial growth may occur.(Mycelia may replace sporidia completely in some species, as well as in some variants of species that normally produce sporidia.)Under suitable conditions, haploids of compatible mating-types fuse, giving rise to a dicaryotic mycelium which reproduces by conjugate nucle...