Meiotic inheritance of a fungal supernumerary chromosome and its effect on sexual fertility in Nectria haematococca

PDA1-conditionally dispensable chromosome (CDC) of Nectria haematococca MP VI has long served as a model of supernumerary chromosomes in plant pathogenic fungi because of pathogenicity-related genes located on it. In our previous study, we showed the dosage effects of PDA1-CDC on pathogenicity and homoserine utilization by exploiting tagged PDA1-CDC with a marker gene. CDC content of mating partners and progenies analyzed by PCR, PFGE combined with Southern analysis and chromosome painting via FISH. In this study, we analyzed mode of meiotic inheritance of PDA1-CDC in several mating patterns with regard to CDC content and found a correlation between CDC content of parental strains with fertility of crosses. The results showed non-Mendelian inheritance of this chromosome followed by duplication or loss of the CDC in haploid genome through meiosis that probably were due to premature centromere division, not by nondisjunction as reported for the supernumerary chromosomes in other species. Correlation of CDC with fertility is the first time to be examined in fungi in this study.