Genetics, Vol 125, 351-369, Copyright © 1990

INVESTIGATIONS

Dominant Maternal-Effect Mutations Causing Embryonic Lethality in Caenorhabditis elegans

P. E. Mains, I. A. Sulston and W. B. Wood
Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, and Department of Medical Biochemistry, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 4N1, Canada

We undertook screens for dominant, temperature-sensitive, maternal-effect embryonic-lethal mutations of Caenorhabditis elegans as a way to identify certain classes of genes with early embryonic functions, in particular those that are members of multigene families and those that are required in two copies for normal development. The screens have identified eight mutations, representing six loci. Mutations at three of the loci result in only maternal effects on embryonic viability. Mutations at the remaining three loci cause additional nonmaternal (zygotic) effects, including recessive lethality or sterility and dominant male mating defects. Mutations at five of the loci cause visible pregastrulation defects. Three mutations appear to be allelic with a recessive mutation of let-354. Gene dosage experiments indicate that one mutation may be a loss-of-function allele at a haploin sufficient locus. The other mutations appear to result in gain-of-function ``poison'' gene products. Most of these become less deleterious as the relative dosage of the corresponding wild-type allele is increased; we show that relative self-progeny viabilities for the relevant hermaphrodite genotypes are generally M/+/+ > M/+ > M/M/+ > M/Df > M/M, where M represents the dominant mutant allele.

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