Abstract
THE observation of Grigg1 that large numbers of conidia of biochemically deficient mutant strains of Neurospora crassa strongly inhibit the growth of ‘wild-type’ conidia when plated on minimal medium containing 0.2 per cent sucrose and 0.4 per cent sorbose led him to question the validity of back-mutation tests. On the other hand, Kølmark and Westergaard2 have reported that in comparable experiments (using an adenine mutant W 40) the substitution of a minimal medium containing 2 per cent glucose completely abolishes the growth inhibition. They suggest that the inhibition of ‘wild-type’ conidia on sorbose medium results from a removal by the large population of germinating mutant spores of the limited amount of sucrose available; they conclude, therefore, that the growth inhibition has no relation to back-mutation tests as usually conducted.
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References
Grigg, G. W., Nature, 169, 98 (1952).
Kølmark, G., and Westergaard, M., Nature, 169, 626 (1952).
Stevens, C. M., and Mylroie, A., Biochim. et Biophys. Acta, 8, 325 (1952).
Giles, N. H., Cold Spring Harbor Symposium Quant. Biol., 16, 283 (1951).
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STEVENS, C., MYLROIE, A. Inhibition Effects in Back-Mutation Tests with Mutants of Neurospora. Nature 171, 179–180 (1953). https://doi.org/10.1038/171179a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/171179a0
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