Figure 1. Basidial differentiation and meiotic progression are spatiotemporally coordinated in Cryptococcus neoformans.

(A) Diagram depicting hyphal development and meiosis-concomitant differentiation process in C. neoformans. (B) Schematic diagram outlining the basidial maturation score (BMS). (C) Violin plot analysis indicates that populations of basidia with high BMS gradually increased over time during unisexual and bisexual development. XL280α cells alone (unisex) or a mixture of XL280α and XL280a cells (α-a bisex) were dropped onto V8 medium and incubated at 25°C in the dark. Hyphae with or without basidia were photographed at 2, 4, 7 and 14 days after mating stimulation, and were randomly chosen for the BMS calculation (n > 110 for each time point). (D) Basidia were photographed at 7 days after mating stimulation. Unisex: n = 194 (unsporulated basidia); n = 51 (sporulated basidia). Bisex: n = 163 (unsporulated basidia); n = 53 (sporulated basidia). Bin width = 0.2. ***p<0.001, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, two sided. A BMS of 1.0 was arbitrarily set as the threshold to define the basidial state. (E) Dynamic fluorescent intensity of Dmc1-mCherry during basidial maturation defined by the BMS method in cryptococcal unisex and bisex processes, respectively. n > 20 for each BMS range.

Figure 1—figure supplement 1. Violin plots showing the distribution frequency of the BMS in different strains.

α cells from XL280 and its derived mutants were incubated on V8 agar in the dark at 25°C to induce the unisexual mating response for 7 days. n = 118 for each strain.