Hybrid dysgenesis in Drosophila melanogaster: the genetics of cytotype determination in a neutral strain

Abstract

The genetic determination of resistance to the sterility-producing genetic elements called P factors was studied in a strain characterized as neutral (Q) in the P-M system of hybrid dysgenesis. Sixteen lines were synthesized, representing all possible homozygous combinations of the three major chromosomes and differing maternal cytoplasms of an original resistant (Q) and susceptible (M) strain. The results provide a detailed genetic analysis of the determination of cytotype (which mediates resistance or susceptibility to P factors) in the absence of the P-M dysgenic interaction. They extend the findings of Engels (1979) by providing specific information on both the location and relative magnitude of effect of cytotype-determining chromosomal factors and their interaction over time with maternally transmitted cytoplasm. Cytotype was found to be primarily controlled by the genotype, but the maternal cytoplasm, under some circumstances, has an important short-term effect. Major cytotype-determining chromosomal factors are localized to the distal half of the X chromosome. However, there was also evidence for minor factors located on the major autosomes, particularly chromosome 3. Under certain circumstances, cytotypic switches in either direction can be produced in a single generation by the substitution of an X chromosome carrying a major cytotype determinant. This may provide an explanation of why reciprocal differences have sometimes been interpreted as direct effects of X-chromosome suppressors. However, slow but systematic changes of M to P cytotype were observed in five synthesized lines of mixed origin over twenty generations with no chromosomal substitution. Alternative explanations of these changes in terms of delayed effects of minor autosomal factors or of the transposability of cytotype determinants are discussed.