Summary
It has shown that several characteristics of high-producing industrial strains of Penicillium chrysogenum tend to segregate in the course of cultivation (slant-to-slant transfer). Segregation includes a decrease in the yield of penicillin, mean conidial size, mean size of the nuclei, and an increase in the proportion of morphologically wild-type colonies. These lower-producing segregants also have a higher sensitivity against ultraviolet radiation and, as shown by cytofluorometric methods, a lower DNA content in the condia, a decrease in phosphate uptkae and in the activity of extracellular alkaline phosphatases compared to high-producing strains. Obviously, during mutagenesis/selection programmes ploidy mutants have been selected, which entails an increase in the number of genes coding enzymes responsible for penicillin biosynthesis. In the absence of selection pressure these high-producing strains segregate to lower-producing strains by chromosome losses in the course of slant-to-slant transfers.
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Künkel, W., Berger, D., Risch, S. et al. Genetic instability of industrial strains of Penicillium chrysogenum . Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 36, 499–502 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00170191
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00170191