Homoplasmic yeast cells contain no selectable "hidden" mitochondrial alleles.

Zygotes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae that are heteroplasmic for mitochondrial alleles produce diploid progeny that are homoplasmic for one allele or the other, judged by the criterion that upon further subcloning they produce daughter cells of only one phenotype or the other. Here we show that when such cells are subjected to strong selection for the missing allele, it cannot be detected, so that it is probably not present in even a single copy.