Title

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

Abstract

The tub-1 maternal effect locus contains two naturally occurring isoalleles, tub-1(h) and tuh-1(g). Until recently there has been no possibility to distinguish between the tub-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 tub-3. However, in this report we identify a bristle phenotype associated with the tub-1 locus that has very interesting evolutionary implications. Females homozygous for tub-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 tub-1 locus and that tub-1(h) is completely recessive to tuh-1(g). The tuh-1 locus is located at the euchromatin-β- 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 tub-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.

Publication Date

1-1-1998

Publication Title

Genetics

Volume

148

Issue

2

Number of Pages

743-752

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

Socpus ID

0031886354 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/0031886354

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS