Subject: For Neurosporologists only

From: [email-masked] (Dan Ebbole)
Date: 18 Feb 1995 09:12:56 -0800

There are few mutants in the FGSC that are specifically blocked in
conidiation. Nine alleles of fluffy, and one each of fluffyoid, acon-2 and
acon-3.  David Perkins has suggested that aconidials are very frequently
observed spontaneously but that people do not routinely save these
aconidial strains.  It would really help us if anyone finding an aconidial
strain that appears to grow at near wild type rate would pass the strain
along to me.  Finding such mutants by screening mutagenized conidia
certainly can be done. A screen of 3500 survivors of EMS treatment yielded
1 csp strain (Selitrennikoff, Nelson and Siegel. 1974. Genetics
78:679-690). Matsuyama, Nelson, and Seigel. 1974. Dev. Biol.41:278-287
reported that in screening 1 x 10^5 colonies they found 10^3 aconidials of
which a total of 2 (acon-2 and acon-3) were found to be unaffected in
vegetative growth (although acon-3 is female sterile).  

Please, if you find aconidials with good growth characteristics, please
characterize them yourself or send them along. Thanks.
------------------------
Dr. Daniel Ebbole
[email-masked]
Dept. of Plant Pathology and Microbiology
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-2132