Non-Mendelian Inheritance of DNA-Induced Inositol Independence in Neurospora

Inositol-independent (inos⁺) revertants of Neurospora induced in inositol-requiring mutants by treatment with wild-type DNA in previous studies were found to be stable and to grow well in the absence of inositol. Genetic data presented in this paper show that a major proportion of these induced revertants rarely transmitted the inositol independence character (inos⁺) to their sexual progeny. Non-Mendelian transmission of the transformed character (inos⁺) was also found to occur in some of the sexual progeny in subsequent generations. These genetic data support the idea that the transforming DNA pieces carrying the genetic information (called exosomes) are not readily integrated into the host genome. It is suggested that elimination of most exosomes during meiosis causes a loss of the genetic information and leads to non-Mendelian transmission of the induced revertant character (inos⁺).