XVI International Botanical Congess

A quick and reliable PCR protocol to determine the plus or minus mating type of haploid Chlamydomonas reinhardtii strains from very small amounts of cells will be presented. The method combines a fast DNA preparation and the amplification of the minus-specific mid gene (minus dominance) or the plus specific fus1 gene (fusion). Both primer pairs could be used in the same PCR reaction. The fus1 and mid amplification products could be distinguished by agarose gel electrophoresis due to their different PCR product size. Diploid strains constructed by arg2/arg7-complementation, which should have both mating type genes could also be detected by the occurrence of both amplification products.