Growth of Deletion Diploids
The diploid deletion and wild-type strains were also assayed
for mitotic growth (Table III). Unlike the haploid strains the
homozygous deletion diploids had generation times significantly
longer than the wild-type cells. This was particularly
true for synthetic medium, where the deletion strains grew
10-12 % slower than wild-type cells.
In addition to having longer generation times, the diploid
deletion cells were also larger than their wild-type counterpart.
Comparative histograms of cell volume distributions
for early log phase growth cultures are shown in Fig. 4. The
population distributions for the deletion strains were skewed
towards larger cells. However, the deletion strains were not
uniformly larger. The smallest cells in the culture were very
similar in size for all three strains suggesting that the sizes
of daughter cells at cell separation were the same.