ISOLATION AND PRELIMINARY CHARACTERIZATION OF <i>THREE CHLAMYDOMONAS</i> STRAINS INTERFERTILE WITH <i>CHLAMYDOMONAS REINHARDTII</i> (CHLOROPHYTA)¹

Abstract

ABSTRACT Three new strains of the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii Dangeard were isolated from soil. The isolates differed from one another and from standard laboratory strains of C. reinhardtii in a number of traits, including heavy metal resistance, protein composition, and mitochondrial DNA length. The new isolates also exhibited distinctive restriction fragment length polymorphisms in their nuclear, chloroplast, and mitochondrial genomes. The new isolates were interfertile with the standard laboratory strains and appeared to transfer chloroplast and mitochondrial genomes in a similar manner, that is, predominantly from the material (mt + ) and paternal (mt − ) parents, respectively.