Correction

Abstract

In the Research News article "A ;mitey' theory for gene jumping" (6 Sept., p. 1093), Jean Marx erred when she wrote that the groups of Marilyn A. Houck and Margaret G. Kidwell (Reports, 6 Sept., p. 1125) focused on Proctolaelaps regalis as a possible carrier of P elements among Drosophila species by a "process of elimination." Viruses were not screened for P elements during the study, as implied, nor were any other organisms. Rather, the work was initiated by acarologist Houck (then on the faculty of the University of Arizona), who was aware of P element history from conversations with the Kidwell lab. Houck and Ken Peterson, a postdoc in the Kidwell lab, then initiated the Southern blot analysis that pointed to the presence of P element DNA in P. regalis, and Jonathan Clark, a postdoc at Arizona's Center for Insect Science, significantly extended the work through the application of polymerase chain reaction. Their data do not exclude the possibility of viral participation in the system, however.