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The World of Protozoa, Rotifera, Nematoda and Oligochaeta

Ref ID : 803

A.H. Neilson, O. Holm-Hansen, and R.A. Lewin; An obligately autotrophic mutant of Chlamydomonas dysosmos: a biochemical elucidation. J.Gen.Microbiol. 71:141-148, 1972

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Chlamydomonas dysosmos is a unicellular, flagellate, green alga. Wild-type cells, normally photosynthetic, are also facultatively heterotrophic, being capable of growth in darkness with acetate as sole source of carbon. A mutant induced by ultraviolet light lacked the ability to grow heterotrophically and formed negligible amounts of isocitrate lyase after 70 hr in darkness with acetate, the specific activity being less than 3% of that found in the wild-type. Uptake of acetate after 9 hr was only 0.3% of that by the wild-type. ATP increased slightly during the first 10 hr after addition of acetate and thereafter decreased, in contrast to wild-type cells, in which ATP synthesis continued under similar conditions. Thus C. dysosmos could normally incorporate acetate for heterotrophic growth via the glyoxylate cycle but, in the mutant, this cycle was impaired, the alga being unable to synthesize isocitrate lyase and being thereby rendered obligately autotrophic.