Abstract
Ethidium bromide is known to be a powerful mutagen for the induction of cytoplasmically inherited petite mutations in yeast. The effect of ethidium bromide on the degree of suppressiveness of the induced mutants as a function of exposure time is described. The mitochondrial DNA of 20 ethidium bromide-induced petite mutants has been studied to determine its absence or presence and its buoyant density. Ten mutants, in which we were not able to detect any mitochondrial DNA, were neutral petites. The 10 remaining mutants with mitochondrial DNA simultaneously showed a measurable degree of suppressiveness. It was not possible to correlate the buoyant density of the mutant mitochondrial DNA with the degree of suppressiveness.
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This study was supported in part by USPHS grant GM 10017. G.M. received a Fulbright Travel Grant.
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Michaelis, G., Douglass, S., Tsai, MJ. et al. Mitochondrial DNA and suppressiveness of petite mutants in Saccharomyces cerevisiae . Biochem Genet 5, 487–495 (1971). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00487138
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00487138