The cell cycle of symbiotic Chlorella. II. The effect of continuous darkness.

Abstract

When green hydra were grown in continuous darkness the mean cell size of their symbiotic algae was smaller than when grown in light and numbers of algae per digestive cell were reduced. The former was due to a reduction in size at which the algae divided, and the latter to a loss of synchrony of algal mitosis with that of digestive cells after transfer to darkness. Eventually, algal mitosis regained synchrony with that of digestive cells. Division synchrony was not lost in reinfected hydra (with lower than normal numbers of algae per cell) transferred to darkness; this, and the observation that synchrony in normal animals transferred to darkness was regained when algal numbers per cell had fallen to a new, lower level, suggested that the initial inhibition of algal mitosis was due to competition for a limited supply of heterotrophically required metabolites. When dark-grown hydra were returned to light there was no delay in algal division and a steady increase in the size of dividing cells, suggesting that the smaller division size in darkness was not due simply to the critical size for division being set at a lower value. In light, algal division size varied with frequency of host feeding, but this had less effect on algal division size in darkness. It is suggested that the critical cell size that algae must attain before being able to complete the cell cycle is the same in light and darkness, but in light mitosis is restricted by some exogenous factor so that algae grow beyond the critical size without dividing. In darkness both algal cell growth and division are dependent on exogenously supplied metabolites, and cell growth rather than the division factor is limiting. The precise nature of the restriction on algal division remains unknown.