Title

The tumorous-head-1 locus affects bristle number of the Drosophila melanogaster cuticle

Authors

Authors

G. Packert;D. T. Kuhn

Comments

Authors: contact us about adding a copy of your work at STARS@ucf.edu

Abbreviated Journal Title

Genetics

Keywords

QUANTITATIVE GENETIC-VARIATION; CHROMOSOME; SELECTION; REGION; Genetics & Heredity

Abstract

The tuh-1 maternal effect locus contains two naturally occurring isoalleles, tuh-1(h) and tuh-1(g). Until recently there has been no possibility to distinguish between the tuh-1(h) and the tuh-1(g) maternal effects other than evaluating their effect on the Bithorax-Complex (BX-C) Abdominal (B) (Abd-B) mutant tuh-3. However, in this report we identify a bristle phenotype associated with the tuh-1 locus that has very interesting evolutionary implications. Females homozygous for tuh-1(h) always produce adult offspring with more bristles than females homozygous or heterozygous for tuh-1(g). The effect is global. Increased bristle number occurs in the head, the thorax, and the anterior and posterior abdomen. Females totally deficient for the tuh-1 gene produce offspring with high bristle number. Thus, the bristle phenotype results from the absence of the maternally contributed tuh-1(g) factor. Genetic evidence shows that the bristle phenotype is caused by the tuh-1 locus and that tuh-1(h) is completely recessive to tuh-1(g). The tuh-1 locus is located at the euchromatin-beta-heterochromatin junction near the centromere of the X chromosome and deficiency analysis places the locus between the lethal genes extra organs (eo) and lethal B20 (lB20). The variance in bristle number attributable to the tuh-1 locus in nature is approximately 10.1%, an indication that the bristle phenotype is most likely a neutral, pleiotrophic side effect of tuh-1.

Journal Title

Genetics

Volume

148

Issue/Number

2

Publication Date

1-1-1998

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

743

Last Page

752

WOS Identifier

WOS:000072187500018

ISSN

0016-6731

Share

COinS