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. 1985 Nov;79(3):740–745. doi: 10.1104/pp.79.3.740

Sexual Agglutination in the Unicellular Green Alga Chlamydomonas eugametos

Identification and Properties of the Mating Type plus Agglutination Factor

Frans M Klis 1, Marieke R Samson 1, Egbert Touw 1, Alan Musgrave 1, Herman van den Ende 1
PMCID: PMC1074963  PMID: 16664484

Abstract

Gametes of the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas eugametos agglutinate via their flagella. The mating type plus agglutination factor was solubilized by relatively mild treatments such as a short pH shock or an osmotic shock indicating that it is an extrinsic membrane component. It was also extracted in the nonionic detergent Triton X-100. A simple two-step procedure consisting of gel filtration over Sepharose 4B-cross-linked followed by anion exchange chromatography of the void volume yielded an electrophoretically pure preparation of a single high molecular weight glycoprotein. The agglutination factor sedimented as a 9.3 S particle (assuming a density of 1.50) in sucrose gradients. This low value, compared with the high apparent molecular weight seen during gel filtration and electrophoresis, suggests that the agglutination factor is a rod-like molecule. This was confirmed by viewing rotary-shadowed preparations in the electron microscope. A population of long slender molecules was revealed (328 ± 20 nanometers), many of which had a knob at one end and a flexible region about one fourth of the length from the other end.

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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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