Dear Chlamy Netters,
Has anyone out there faced the need to induce paralysis in the flagella
of motile strains of Chlamydomonas. I need to and am looking for any hints
that y`all might have. I recall vaguely that, among the various reagents and
treatments, that induce Chlamy flagellar resorption, they fall into two
categories - those that allow continued flagellar motility during resorption
and those that induce paralysis at the same time that they induce resorption.
Anyone remember anything more specific? It is obviously not optimum for my
purposes to kick resorption into gear as a price to pay for achieving
flagellar paralysis, but if that is the only possibility, I would try it
since some methods of resorption are slow enough that I may be able to
accomplish what I want before significant flagellar shortening sets in.
As an aside, it is interesting that nature has a mechanism for inducing
selective flagellar paralysis in the quadriflagellate zygote of at least some
species of Chlamydomonas. It might be interesting to have a mutant where
that did not occur in the quadriflagellate. Such a mutant would ould
presumably have a poorly swimming quadriflagellate. Are quadriflagellate
heterozygotes phototactic?
Regards, Bob Bloodgood
University of Virginia
RAB4m at Virginia.edu
