Restricted distribution of the Tad transposon in strains of Neurospora

Summary A simple colony blot procedure was used to screen 336 Neurospora strains for the presence of the transposable element Tad. These strains included the standard laboratory wild types, all of the available Neurospora isolates collected from the Ivory Coast, and all wild-collected Neurospora crassa isolates available from the Fungal Genetics Stock Center. Tad was found only in the strain of origin from Adiopodumé, Ivory Coast, where it is present in multiple copies. Three other strains of African origin were found to have single copy sequences that are related to Tad.