Skip to main content
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1995 Jan 17;92(2):641–645. doi: 10.1073/pnas.92.2.641

Chemoattraction of male gametes by a pheromone produced by female gametes of Chlamydomonas.

R C Starr 1, F J Marner 1, L Jaenicke 1
PMCID: PMC42798  PMID: 11607510

Abstract

In isogamous species of Chlamydomonas, such as Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and Chlamydomonas eugametos, the sexual process involves the use of flagella agglutinins by which the gametes of compatible strains adhere through chance encounter and ultimately pair and fuse to form zygotes. In a newly described heterogamous species, Chlamydomonas allensworthii, the sexual process is initiated by the chemoattraction of small sperm to a sexually competent female gamete, which continues to secrete the pheromone until it has fused with one of the sperm so attracted. From bacteria-free female strains of C. allensworthii, the chemoat-tractant has been isolated and identified as a pentosylated hydroquinone (Mr = 532) whose spectral, chemical, and physical properties are in accord with the structure of a 2,3-dimethyl-5-(triprenylcarboxymethyl)-1,4-benzohydroquinone-1-(beta-xyloside). A rapid bioassay of the pheromone uses DEAE-Toyopearl 650M beads to which the pheromone adsorbs. When such activated beads are placed in a suspension of sperm, they act as surrogate females and attract the small motile sperm. The purified pheromone shows activity at a concentration as low as 1 pM.

Full text

PDF
641

Articles from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America are provided here courtesy of National Academy of Sciences

RESOURCES