Mating and Tetrad Dissection in Chlamydomonas

Abstract

The ability to carry out controlled genetic crosses has contributed to making the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii an important model organism for the green plant kingdom (Merchant et al., 2007). This protocol describes a simple and reliable method for crossing Chlamydomonas strains of opposite mating types and dissecting out the meiotic progeny for genetic analyses. The protocol should apply in general to motile strains with functional flagella but has only been routinely used with strains in the CC-124/125 background. A key aspect is access to a microscope equipped with a microdissection needle for manipulation of individual cells with high accuracy. For an extended description of the mating process, the reader is referred to the excellent article by Dutcher (1995). For variations on this procedure, see Note 1.