Haploids bearing the dominant UAG suppressor, SUP7-a, and various alleles of the omnipotent suppressor sup35 were examined. The presence of the UAG suppressor reduced the efficiency of some alleles of sup35, and caused other sup35 alleles to be lethal. A nonclassical interaction of the dominant suppressor tRNA and the ribosome is proposed to explain these observations.

Diploid Saccharomyes cerevisae strains lacking the RAD52 gene required for homologous recombination have a very high rate of chromosome loss. Two of four isolates subcultured ∼20 times (∼500 cell divisions) became haploid. These strains were capable of mating with wild-type haploids to produce diploid progeny capable of undergoing meiosis to produce four viable spores.

The liverwort Marchantia polymorpha has X and Y chromosomes in the respective female and male haploids. Here we report the successful exploitation of representational difference analyses to isolate DNA markers for the sex chromosomes. Two female-specific and six male-specific DNA fragments were genetically confirmed to originate from the X and Y chromosomes, respectively.

The yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, was used as a model to investigate theories of ploidy evolution. Mutagenesis experiments using the alkylating agent EMS (ethane methyl sulphonate) were conducted to assess the relative importance that masking of deleterious mutations has on response to and recovery from DNA damage. In particular, we tested whether cells with higher ploidy levels have relativ...

A recessive temperature-sensitive mutation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been isolated and shown to cause an increase in ploidy in both haploids and diploids. Genetic analysis revealed that the strain carrying the mutation was an aa diploid, although MNNG mutagenesis had been done on an a haploid strain. When the mutant strain was crossed with an alpha alpha diploid and the resultant tetraplo...