Escape from het-6 incompatibility in Neurospora crassa partial diploids involves preferential deletion within the ectopic segment

Self-incompatible het-6 OR/het-6 PA partial diploids of Neurospora crassa were selected from a cross involving the translocation strain, T(IIL → IIIR)AR18, and a normal sequence strain. About 25% of the partial diploids exhibited a marked increase in growth rate after 2 weeks, indicating that “escape” from het-6 incompatibility had occurred. Near isogenic tester strains with different alleles (het-6 OR and het-6 PA) were constructed and used to determine that 80 of 96 escape strains tested were het-6 PA, retaining the het-6 allele found in the normal-sequence LGII position; 16 were het-6 OR, retaining the allele in the translocated position. Restriction fragment length polymorphisms in 45 escape strains were examined with probes made from cosmids that spanned the translocated region. Along with electrophoretic analysis of chromosomes from three escape strains, RFLPs showed that escape is associated with deletion of part of one or the other of the duplicated DNA segments. Deletions ranged in size from ~70 kbp up to putatively the entire 270-kbp translocated region but always included a 35-kbp region wherein we hypothesize het-6 is located. The deletion spectrum at het-6 thus resembles other cases where mitotic deletions occur such as of tumor suppressor genes and of the hprt gene (coding for hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyl-transferase) in humans.