Worm Breeder's Gazette 1(2): 19b
These abstracts should not be cited in bibliographies. Material contained herein should be treated as personal communication and should be cited as such only with the consent of the author.
The flu-2 (previously called fl-II; M.G.G. 135 39-44) mutants were picked up for the altered autofluorescence of the gut as the phenotype. These mutants have very much reduced activity of kynureninase compared to the wild-type. Crude extracts of alleles of this gene have been assayed for this enzyme activity; three of them, flu-2-2, s than 5% specific activity of the wild type whereas flu-2-1 has about 12%. In an attempt to make revertants of flu-2 using EMS it was noticed that these mutants were highly sensitive to EMS. A quantitative measure to EMS sensitivity was made by subjecting young larvae of N2 as well as flu-2 mutants to 300 min of 0.05 M EMS and estimating the fraction of larvae which continue to grow and become adults. About 30% of N2 larvae survive this treatment whereas only about 4% of flu-2- 1 and about 0.5% of the other three alleles of flu-2 survive. Thus these mutants show high degree of sensitivity to EMS; further this sensitivity appears to be correlated to the level of residual kynureninase activity as indicated by the data shown above. Flu-2 mutants also show enhanced sensitivity to gamma-rays; however there is no significant difference in the sensitivities of N2 and flu- 2 mutants to UV irradiation.