Apparent bisexual behavior of yeast strains obtained from hybridization of industrial yeasts of the genus Saccharomyces with auxotrophic diploids.

During a genetic study of some hybrids of brewer's and distiller's yeast strains with impaired sporulation characteristics and genetically marked auxotrophic aa and alpha alpha diploids, strains which showed positive mating reactions with both a and alpha haploid tester strains were observed. These strains proved to be homothallic and sporulated freely. The original hybrids, which appeared to be tetraploid, usually yielded sporulating single-spore clones on dissection of asci formed from them, with few or no mating strains among them. Dissection of asci from these clones yielded some single-spore clones which showed mating reactions with one or the other or both haploid tester strains, and further selection produced strains which on sporulation and dissection yielded single-spore clones which were apparently bisexual and sporulated freely. These strains proved to be homothallic, yielding single-spore clones which were all of the a mating type, and in which the mating reaction and, possibly, the action of the genes for homothallism were impaired, so that sporulating, non-mating diploids and haploids of both mating types were present in cultures originally obtained as single-spore clones.