Behavior of chloroplast genes during the early zygotic divisions of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Chloroplast mutations in the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii exhibit a predominantly maternal pattern of inheritance and this pattern can be perturbed by UV irradiation of the maternal gametes prior to mating. In a series of crosses over a range of UV doses, the transmission, segregation, and recombination of mutations at three closely linked chloroplast loci have been examined by pedigree analysis of products arising from the first three post-zygotic divisions. Stocks used in these crosses were constructed to permit identification of the nuclear products of each of the two meiotic divisions and the first post-meiotic mitotic division. A bias toward maternal alleles at all three chloroplast loci was observed in all pedigrees and in zygote clones analyzed from the same crosses many generations after meiosis. This bias decreased with increasing UV dose and with each subsequent division. Segregation of chloroplast genes was rapid during the first three post-zygotic divisions. The type of segregation event from which a given heteroplasmic cell arose had a significant effect on its most likely segregation. pattern in the subsequent division. The results presented here have been discussed in terms of published models of chloroplast gene segregation.