Map positions of third chromosomal female sterile and lethal mutations ofDrosophila melanogaster

Abstract

Chromosomal mutations induced by ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) treatment can cause female sterility or maternal-effect lethality in Drosophila. EMS is particularly useful to researchers because it creates mutations independent of position effects. However, because researchers have little control over the chromosomal site of mutation, post-mutagenic genetic mapping is required to determine the cytological location of the mutation. To make a valuable set of mutants more useful to the research community, we have mapped the uncharacterized part of the female-sterile - maternal-effect lethal Tubingen collection. We mapped 49 female-sterile - maternal-effect lethal alleles and 72 lethal alleles to individual deficiency intervals on the third chromosome. In addition, we analyzed the phenotype of ovaries resulting from female sterile mutations. The observed phenotypes range from tumorous ovaries and early blocks in oogenesis, to later blocks, slow growth, blocks in stage 10, to apparently full development of the ovary. The mapping and phenotypic characterization of these 121 mutations provide the necessary information for the researcher to consider a specific mutant as a candidate for their gene of interest.

Functional Characterization of Drosophila Translin and Trax

“…596 and 7653, respectively). Translin and trax mutant fly strains described in this article were of the following genotypes (unless otherwise noted) and were kept as stocks: trax W151* has been described as H813 by Schuetze et al (2004), and hemizygous flies were analyzed as w; trax W151* ru st e ca/Df(3R)Exel6174, Dtrsn: w; Dtrsn/Df(2R)stan2 b pr, and Dtrsn;trax W151* : w; Dtrsn/Df(2R)stan2 b pr; trax W151* ru st e ca/ Df(3R)Exel6174.…”

“…Under standard laboratory conditions Drosophila translin is thus dispensable for viability and fertility. Schuetze et al (2004) mapped the H813 femalesterile mutation from the Tü bingen collection (Tearle and Nü sslein-Volhard 1987) to the trax region. We therefore sequenced the trax allele in this mutant and found a point mutation that generates an in-frame stop codon at amino acid position 151 (trax W151* , Figures 1 and 2).…”