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. 1988 Mar;86(3):773–777. doi: 10.1104/pp.86.3.773

Temperature-Sensitive, Photosynthesis-Deficient Mutants of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii1

Robert J Spreitzer 1, Souhail R Al-Abed 1, Michael J Huether 1,2
PMCID: PMC1054568  PMID: 16665986

Abstract

Mutants of the unicellular, green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii were recovered by screening for the absence of photoautotrophic growth at 35°C. Whereas nonconditional mutants required acetate for growth at both 25 and 35°C, the conditional mutants have normal photoautotrophic growth at 25°C. The conditional mutants consisted of two classes: (a) Temperature-sensitive mutants died under all growth conditions at 35°C, but (b) temperature-sensitive, acetate-requiring mutants were capable of heterotrophic growth at 35°C when supplied with acetate in the dark. The majority of mutants within the latter of these two classes had defects in photosynthetic functions. These defects included altered pigmentation, reduced whole-chain electron-transport activity, reduced ribulosebis-phosphate carboxylase activity, or pleiotropic alterations in a number of these photosynthetic components. Both nuclear and chloroplast mutants were identified, and a correlation between light-sensitive and photosynthesis-deficient phenotypes was observed.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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