Heterogenous size

[Michael Lichten]

In article <v01520d00acbc9906959a@[203.4.164.216]>,
germain at PETERMAC.UNIMELB.EDU.AU (Doris Germain) wrote:

> Hello everybody,
>         Let's say you stick out a strain for single colony on a plate. What
> would be your explanation (beside contamination of two strains) for
> heterogenous colony size on a plate?
> Thank you

In addition to what Charlie suggested, I'd like to add the following:

1.  Petites.  Some cerevisiae strains throw off petites (respiratory
deficient due to deletion/rearrangements in the mitochondrial genome) at a
high frequency.  These colonies are usually smaller that grande
(respiratory competent) cells.

2.  Non-uniform starting stock with respect to initiation of growth.  If
you struck from an old colony, some cells will take appreciably longer to
"get going" than others.  The result will be heterogeneous colony size.

-- 
Michael Lichten
lichten at helix.nih.gov