USE OF NYSTATIN-RESISTANT MUTATIONS IN PARASEXUAL GENETIC ANALYSIS IN DICTYOSTELIUM DISCOIDEUM

Durgadas P. Kasbekar ¹, Sanford Madigan ¹, and Eugene R. Katz ¹

¹ Department of Microbiology, State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York 11794

Nystatin-resistant mutations exhibit extreme sensitivity to 1.3 mm coumarin. The mutations fall into three complementation groups so it is possible to select for nonallelic mutations conferring sensitivity to coumarin by selection on nystatin-containing nutrient agar plates. Complementation between such coumarin-sensitive mutations allows the selection of diploids on coumarin-containing nutrient agar. Two of the nystatin resistance genes, nysB and nysC, have been mapped tentatively to the previously unmarked linkage group V.