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Plant and Cell Physiology, 1991, Vol. 32, No. 3 359-364
© 1991

Article

Domination by Female Cells over Preferential Digestion of Chloroplast Nucleoids in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Soichi Nakamura1, Hiroji Chibana1 and Tsuneyoshi Kuroiwa2

1Department of Biology, Division of General Education, University of the Ryukyus Okinawa, 903-01 Japan
2Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo Tokyo, 113 Japan

Using Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cells of various ages, harvested after culture on agar plates for periods from 7 days to about one month and subsequently induced to form gametes for a period of 4 hours, we examined the formation of zygotes, the preferential digestion of chloroplast nucleoids (ct-nucleoids) of the mt– parent, nuclear fusion and maternal inheritance of chloroplast-specific traits.

Previous studies have shown that, when young mt+ and mt– cells harvested from one-week-old cultures are mated, preferential digestion of ct-nucleoids occurs between 50 and 120 min and nuclear fusion between 70 and 180 min. We now report that, with later harvesting, although formation of zygotes and nuclear fusion are not affected, the occurrence of preferential digestion of ct-nucleoids can be delayed for up to about 5 h, depending on the age of the cultures of cells. This result suggests that the process of preferential digestion is independent of nuclear fusion.

Mt+ cells dominated with respect to the occurrence of preferential digestion, when a comparison was made of the frequencies of preferential digestion in zygotes derived from the following two types of mating: young mt+ cells (harvested from one-week-old cultures) × aged mt– cells (harvested from about 3-week-old cultures); and aged mt+ cells × young mt– cells.

Genetic analysis of chloroplast-specific genetic markers for resistance to antibiotics showed that delay in the occurrence of preferential digestion did not affect maternal chloroplast inheritance.

(Received October 22, 1990; Accepted January 17, 1991)
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