Estimation of mitotic stability in conidial fungi: a theoretical framework

Mitotic stability refers to the probability that genetic elements are transmitted to both daughters during mitosis. This is of practical importance in molecular genetics because autonomous cloning vectors should be transmitted at high frequency during mitosis. In filamentous coencytic fungi it is difficult to quantify mitotic stability because a fluctuation test is not feasible. We show how to get around this problem by formulating a general model of the transmission of nuclear genetic elements through the course of conidiogenesis. We derive formulas by two different methods for the expected proportion of conidiospores that retain the element as a function of its mitotic stability and the number of generations of spore production. An important by-product yields the exact probability distributions for the number of conidiospores retaining elements at each stage of conidiophore development. We outline, and illustrate through specific numerical examples, how to use these formulas to estimate mitotic stability. Although we use Aspergillus nidulans as our biological paradigm, the same general framework can be extended to other fungal species, and possibly to less closely related systems as well.