Open AccessGenetic effects of methyl benzimidazole-2-yl-carbamate on Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
Author(s) -
John S. Wood
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
molecular and cellular biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.14
H-Index - 327
eISSN - 1067-8824
pISSN - 0270-7306
DOI - 10.1128/mcb.2.9.1064
Subject(s) - biology , nondisjunction , aneuploidy , mitosis , saccharomyces cerevisiae , chromosome , genetics , mitotic crossover , benzimidazole , carbamate , polyploid , microbiology and biotechnology , ploidy , biochemistry , yeast , gene , chemistry , organic chemistry
The genetic effects of the mitotic inhibitor methyl benzimidazole-2-yl-carbamate (MBC) have been studied in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. MBC had little or no effect on the frequency of mutation. In some experiments MBC caused an increase in the frequency of mitotic recombination; however, this effect was small and not reproducible. The primary genetic effect of MBC was to induce mitotic chromosome loss at a high frequency. Chromosome loss occurred at equal frequencies for all chromosomes tested (13 of 16). Cells which had lost multiple chromosomes were found more frequently than predicted if individual chromosome loss events were independent. The probability of loss for a particular chromosome increased with length of time cells were incubated with MBC. MBC treatment also increased the frequency at which polyploid cells were found. These results suggested that MBC acted to disrupt the structure or function of the mitotic spindle and cause chromosome nondisjunction.