Monokaryon frequency among survivors from dikaryotic mycelial fragments.
If unicellular fragments of dikaryotic fungal mycelia are treated with environmental agents which inactivate their nuclei, a sharp rise of monokaryotic fragments among the survivors is expected. Mathematical evidence is presented that the same is also true for homogeneous multicellular fragment populations. It is shown that almost the same increase in monokaryon frequency is to be expected if the fragment population is heterogeneous and composed of different size fragments, regardless of whether these sizes are randomly or non-randomly distributed in the population. The curves for monokaryon frequencies among survivors are almost identical for all four situations considered. We may conclude that dikaryotic mycelia of higher fungi, such as Schizophyllum commune, are very suitable systems for investigating the effect of environmental agents on the nuclei.
D002467:Cell Nucleus; D004171:Diploidy; D005658:Fungi / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D008433:Mathematics; D011336:Probability