MALE-SPECIFIC LETHAL MUTATIONS OF DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER

John M. Belote ¹ and John C. Lucchesi ²

¹ Curriculum in Genetics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27514
² Department of Zoology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27514

A total of 7,416 ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS)-treated second chromosomes and 6,212 EMS-treated third chromosomes were screened for sex-specific lethals. Four new recessive male-specific lethal mutations were recovered. When in homozygous condition, each of these mutations kills males during the late larval or early pupal stages, but has no detectable effect in females. One mutant, mle^ts, is a temperature sensitive allele of maleless, mle (Fukunaga, Tanaka and Oishi 1975), while the other three mutants identify two new loci: male-specific lethal-1 (msl-1) (two alleles) at map position 2-53.3 and male-specific lethal-2 (msl-2) at 2-9.0.——The male-specific lethality associated with these mutants is not related to the sex per se of the mutant flies, since sex-transforming genes fail to interact with these mutations. Moreover, the presence or absence of a Y chromosome in males or females has no influence on the male-specific lethal action of these mutations. Finally, no single region of the X chromosome, when present as a duplication, is sufficient to rescue males from the lethal effects of msl-1 or msl-2. These results suggest that the number of complete X chromosomes determines whether a fly homozygous for a male-specific lethal mutation lives or dies.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				K. A. Worringer and B. Panning Zinc Finger Protein Zn72D Promotes Productive Splicing of the maleless Transcript Mol. Cell. Biol., December 15, 2007; 27(24): 8760 - 8769. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				M. T. Levine, A. K. Holloway, U. Arshad, and D. J. Begun Pervasive and Largely Lineage-Specific Adaptive Protein Evolution in the Dosage Compensation Complex of Drosophila melanogaster Genetics, November 1, 2007; 177(3): 1959 - 1962. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				X. Deng and V. H. Meller roX RNAs Are Required for Increased Expression of X-Linked Genes in Drosophila melanogaster Males Genetics, December 1, 2006; 174(4): 1859 - 1866. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				K. Duncan, M. Grskovic, C. Strein, K. Beckmann, R. Niggeweg, I. Abaza, F. Gebauer, M. Wilm, and M. W. Hentze Sex-lethal imparts a sex-specific function to UNR by recruiting it to the msl-2 mRNA 3' UTR: translational repression for dosage compensation Genes & Dev., February 1, 2006; 20(3): 368 - 379. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				E. R. Smith, C. Cayrou, R. Huang, W. S. Lane, J. Cote, and J. C. Lucchesi A Human Protein Complex Homologous to the Drosophila MSL Complex Is Responsible for the Majority of Histone H4 Acetylation at Lysine 16 Mol. Cell. Biol., November 1, 2005; 25(21): 9175 - 9188. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				F. N. Hamada, P. J. Park, P. R. Gordadze, and M. I. Kuroda Global regulation of X chromosomal genes by the MSL complex in Drosophila melanogaster Genes & Dev., October 1, 2005; 19(19): 2289 - 2294. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				Y. Jin, Y. Wang, J. Johansen, and K. M. Johansen JIL-1, a Chromosomal Kinase Implicated in Regulation of Chromatin Structure, Associates with the Male Specific Lethal (MSL) Dosage Compensation Complex J. Cell Biol., May 29, 2000; 149(5): 1005 - 1010. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				V. K. Lloyd, D. A. Sinclair, and T. A. Grigliatti Genomic Imprinting and Position-Effect Variegation in Drosophila melanogaster Genetics, April 1, 1999; 151(4): 1503 - 1516. [Abstract] [Full Text]

				A Bhattacharya, S Sudha, H. Chandra, and R Steward flex, an X-linked female-lethal mutation in Drosophila melanogaster controls the expression of Sex-lethal Development, January 12, 1999; 126(23): 5485 - 5493. [Abstract] [PDF]

				K. A. Chang and M. I. Kuroda Modulation of MSL1 Abundance in Female Drosophila Contributes to the Sex Specificity of Dosage Compensation Genetics, October 1, 1998; 150(2): 699 - 709. [Abstract] [Full Text]

				C SchuLtt, A Hilfiker, and R Nothiger virilizer regulates Sex-lethal in the germline of Drosophila melanogaster Development, January 4, 1998; 125(8): 1501 - 1507. [Abstract] [PDF]

				A Franke, A Dernburg, G. Bashaw, and B. Baker Evidence that MSL-mediated dosage compensation in Drosophila begins at blastoderm Development, January 9, 1996; 122(9): 2751 - 2760. [Abstract] [PDF]

				D E Gillespie and C A Berg Homeless is required for RNA localization in Drosophila oogenesis and encodes a new member of the DE-H family of RNA-dependent ATPases. Genes & Dev., October 15, 1995; 9(20): 2495 - 2508. [Abstract] [PDF]

				A Hilfiker, H Amrein, A Dubendorfer, R Schneiter, and R Nothiger The gene virilizer is required for female-specific splicing controlled by Sxl, the master gene for sexual development in Drosophila Development, January 12, 1995; 121(12): 4017 - 4026. [Abstract] [PDF]

				R. Roseman, J. Swan, and P. Geyer A Drosophila insulator protein facilitates dosage compensation of the X chromosome min-white gene located at autosomal insertion sites Development, January 11, 1995; 121(11): 3573 - 3582. [Abstract] [PDF]

				M Gorman, A Franke, and B. Baker Molecular characterization of the male-specific lethal-3 gene and investigations of the regulation of dosage compensation in Drosophila Development, January 2, 1995; 121(2): 463 - 475. [Abstract] [PDF]

				M J Palmer, R Richman, L Richter, and M I Kuroda Sex-specific regulation of the male-specific lethal-1 dosage compensation gene in Drosophila. Genes & Dev., March 15, 1994; 8(6): 698 - 706. [Abstract] [PDF]

				W Mattox and B S Baker Autoregulation of the splicing of transcripts from the transformer-2 gene of Drosophila. Genes & Dev., May 1, 1991; 5(5): 786 - 796. [Abstract] [PDF]