Uniparental Inheritance in Chlamydomonas reinhardi

Abstract

This article reviews what is known about uniparental inheritance in the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardi. The most important conclusion is that these genes are unlike Mendelian genes in their transmissional genetics, but are similar to Mendelian genes in that they mutate, segregate, and recombine. Experimental evidence is presented which suggests that the number of copies of uniparental genes per cell is probably small. What is known of the transmissional genetics of UP genes is compared with what is known about the transmission of chromosomal and satellite DNA species in C. reinhardi.