Figure 4. Comparable telomere lengths in A. nidulans hyphae and ascospores.

A. Color microscopy of intact sexual ascospores (arrowhead) determined to be >99% of total cell concentration. The conidium (arrow) was thus relatively rare after cleaning the cleistothecium, and one is shown here for comparison. B. Broken ascospore lysate obtained by using a FastPrep Homogenizer. C. No difference was observed between A. nidulans hyphal and ascospore telomere length (lanes 2 and 5). Telomere PCR products for both cell types were observed at ∼350 bp. Diagram to the left corresponds to regions used for densitometry; solid black rectangle indicates majority of products and white rectangle indicates larger telomeric products. Forward and reverse primers were used to amplify telomere associated sequences (TAS, lanes 3 and 6) and the Pot1 gene (lanes 4 and 7), both located chromosome internally as controls.