Plaque-size Mutants of the Cellular Slime Mould Dictyostelium discoideum

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Abstract
SUMMARY: Strains of Dictyostelium discoideum with stable hereditable alterations in growth rate have been isolated on the basis of plaque size following treatment of the myxamoebae with nitrosoguanidine. Myxamoebae of five independently isolated strains which form small plaques were mixed in all possible pairs and allowed to develop. Eight of the ten pairs gave strains with the ability to form large plaques. Several large-plaque strains isolated from such mixtures were found to segregate small-plaque strains during vegetative growth. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that these large-plaque strains result from recombination or complementation in a genome derived at least partially from two parental strains.