<p>The inheritance of mitochondria and their genomes is predominantly uniparental in plants and animals. However, in fungi, the patterns of inheritance can become complex. Interestingly, in <em>Cryptococcus neoformans</em>, the inheritance pattern is predominantly uniparental. Similar to <em>C. neoformans</em>, closely related <em>Cryptococcus gattii </em>is also a pathogenic fungus, except that it is capable of infecting healthy individuals. In this research, PCR-RFLP was employed on progeny of 14 crosses in order to determine if the mtDNA inheritance pattern is the same in <em>Cryptococcus gattii</em> as was found in <em>C. neoformans.</em> Additionally, the effect of genetic distance between mating partners on mitochondrial inheritance was investigated by using a range of strains across three of the four distinct lineages in <em>C. gattii</em>. My results identified highly variable patterns of inheritance among strains and strain combinations, both within and between the analyzed lineages in <em>C. gattii</em>.</p> / Master of Science (MSc)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/11478 |
| Date | 10 1900 |
| Creators | Wilson, Amanda J. |
| Contributors | Xu, Jianping, Golding, Brian, Golding, Brian, Biology |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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