Studies on flagella-less, stumpy, and short flagellum mutants of
Chlamydomonas reinhardii
I will describe briefly some mutants of Chlamydomonas reinhardii which are unable to form a complete flagellum. Eight flagella-less, six stumpy and eleven short flagellum mutants have been studied. Flagella-less mutants are shown to have a normal basal body when examined in the electron microscope. The transitional region, characterized by the presence of a densely staining cylinder with the appearance in longitudinal section of a letter H, is also present (figure 39, plate 12). Outer flagellar tubules extend from the basal body into the transitional region and terminate at its distal end. In transverse sections through the transitional region the outer tubules often appear poorly formed and in some cases incomplete. The 9 + 2 axoneme is completely absent, and the flagellum only extends part way through the tunnel in the cell wall and is thus not visible in the light microscope. These mutants appear to have some abnormality in the structure or assembly of the transitional region which prevents the further development of the external flagellum. Stumpy mutants have flagella less than 1 μ m long from the distal end of the transitional region cylinder. At the tip, the membrane is distended, and the enlarged space between the membrane and the outer axoneme tubules is filled with electron dense material (figures 40, 41, plate 12). This sometimes appears in the form of ribbons in both longitudinal and transverse sections suggesting that it may occur in sheets. It may represent tubule material which failed to become incorporated into organized tubules. The 9 + 2 array of tubules may appear normal as in figure 41, but more frequently some of the individual tubules appear poorly formed or incomplete and the whole array is distorted. No abnormalities are seen in the basal body and transitional regions.