As I already emailed Rich, I have had no problem mating yeasts in liquid,
although I have not done so 96 wells at a time. Perhaps the source of the
problem you describe might be that as assayed on plates, etc., alpha cells
produce much more mating factor activity than do a cells, i.e., it is easy to
demonstrate a shmooing in response to alpha cells but harder to demonstrate
alpha shmooing in response to a cells. I don't know if this difference (seen
obviously in wild-type cells, since mutants can be made to do anything)
reflects differences in amount of mating factor produced or mating factor
specific activity differences. I'm curious, do you find you need more a's than
alpha's, as my explanation would imply?
Sincerely,
Mike Leibowitz
UMDNJ-RW Johnson Medical School
