Mating Relationship between the parent and the mutant strains in Pleurotus ostreatus

Pleurotus ostreatus 'Miso' is a mutant strain showing white color in pileus from the known parent strain 'Wonhyeong 1'. Shape and several other characters also vary with culture conditions. Mating experiments were performed to understand interstrain mating relationship using monokaryons of the parent and the mutant strains. All monokaryons were grown from single spores isolated from freshly collected fruit bodies. Pairings were performed in 90 mm petri dishes on PDA. They were allowed to grow at 25 until two fronts of the advancing mycelia met and developed a conspicuous contact zone. The contact zone and the outer edges of paired colonies on each plate were examined for clamp connections. The parent and the mutant resulted in tetrapolar incompatibility in intrastrain crosses. In interstrain crosses, each monokaryotic tester strain of the parent strain was out-crossed to monokaryotic tester strains of the mutant. As a result of these crosses it was found that both strains share the same A and B incompatibility factors yielding 25% compatibility.