Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 April 2009
The presence of a gene designated bncA which produces binucleate and trinucleate conidia in A. nidulans alters the instability of disomics, diploids, and strains with chromosome duplication. In disomics, the gene bncA increases instability. In duplicate and diploid strains, the bncA gene reduces instability by acting as a partial stabilizer. In the strain with chromosome duplication, the bncA gene produces increased percentages of bi- and trinucleate conidia, a fact that may be interpreted to be due to the larger conidial volume of this strain or to the combined effect of bncA and of the strain, which normally already exhibits a small amount of binucleate conidia.