Homothallism in the unicellular alga, Chlamydomonas monoica is an example of intracellular decision-making: individual cells derived from a common progenitor become cells of compatible mating-types (mt+ or mt-). Our goal is to decipher the genetic mechanisms underlying this simple binary cellular decision-a type of decision central to developmental biology. Our objectives are three-fold: 1) to distinguish between regulatory mating-type loci (mt) and loci under mating type regulation (mtl), 2) to identify genes (swi) controlling the cell's ability to choose between alternative mating phenotypes, and 3) to determine whether genes involved in DNA repair/recombination also contribute to homothallism. During the development of any organism to an adult stage, innumerable decisions are made. The hope of understanding the mechanisms related to such decision making can only be realized by studying the simpler binary decision making process in an organism such as Chlamydomonas.***
