Summary
In contrast to the wild-type, mutant [ANT R8] is able spontaneously to throw off stable respiratory deficient mutants. The frequency of these mutants is considerably enhanced by treatment with ethidium bromide (EB) or the azo-dye Janus green (JG).
An unstable cell state with a petite-like phenotype is found in both mutant [ANT R8] and wild-type after EB-treatment. However, only in the mutant is this unstable cell state followed by the appearance of stable respiratory deficient (RD) mutants. Formation of microcolonies is observed both in [ANT R8] and wild-type.
RD mutants were isolated after EB treatment. Three of them (mit-12, mit-25, and mit-30) were analyzed and mit-25 characterized in more detail.
Mutant mit-25 shows mitotic segregation in the diploid state, indicating non-Mendelian mode of inheritance.
The results of haploidization experiments also indicate extrachromosomal inheritance.
Mit-25 shows a spontaneous rate of reversion of 10-6, which can considerably increased by EB.
Mit-25 possesses enzymatically active complexes I, II, and III of the respiratory chain (the latter without cytochrome b-566), lacks complex IV and binds antimycin, showing that mitochondrial protein synthesis is functional. Several lines of evidence presented in this paper make it very likely that the lesion in the mutant mit-25 is a point mutation in mitochondrial DNA.
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Communicated by W. Gajewski
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Wolf, K., Lang, B., Burger, G. et al. Extrachromosomal inheritance in Schizosaccharomyces pombe . Molec. Gen. Genet. 144, 75–81 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00277308
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00277308