ON THE GENETIC CONTROL OF GENES LOCATED IN THE SEX-CHROMOSOME HETEROCHROMATIN OF DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER

L. Sandler ¹

¹ Department of Genetics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195

The genetic properties of a recessive autosomal point mutant, "daughterless" (symbol: da), are described. They are: (1) da maps in the euchromatin of 2L at about position 39 on the genetic map and between 27D and 31E on the salivary map; (2) when homozygous in females, da causes the production of unisexual male progenies owing to sex differential zygote mortality in the egg stage; (3) da has no effect on the progeny of mutant males; (4) female zygotes die, while at least some male zygotes survive, irrespective of the number of Y chromosomes or the amount of X-chromosome heterochromatin carried by either the mutant female or her progeny; (5) homozygous da progeny of heterozygous parents also show sex differential survival favoring males indicating a da effect in development as well as in oogenesis, but with the developmental effect much less pronounced; (6) extra heterochromatin from either the X or Y chromosome in either the mother or her progeny can reduce the mortality caused by da in development (and, therefore, conceivably can also reduce the abnormality in oogenesis, although this is obscured by the severity of the maternal effect.)—From these results, it is suggested that (1) da regulates either the activity of structural genes in the sex chromosome heterochromatin or the activity or stability of their products, and (2) it is a defective product of sex chromosome heterochromatic genes that causes the abnormalities resulting in the observed mortality of heterozygous progeny of homozygous mutant mothers and of homozygous mutant progeny of heterozygous mothers.—The striking parallels with the properties of the gene, "abnormal oocyte" are noted as is the close linkage between the two loci. The possibility of a special sex-chromosome-heterochromatin-regulator region on chromosome 2 is considered.

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				C Cronmiller, P Schedl, and T W Cline Molecular characterization of daughterless, a Drosophila sex determination gene with multiple roles in development. Genes & Dev., December 1, 1988; 2(12a): 1666 - 1676. [Abstract] [PDF]