Worm Breeder's Gazette 10(1): 46

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.

lin-40 is a Hot Spot for Tc1 Induced Mutations

R.C. Johnsen, K.A. Beckenbach and D.L. Baillie

A Tc1 mutagenesis screen in the nT1(IV,V) balanced region using mut-
4 RW7037 was performed (McKim et al.  C.  elegans Abstracts CSH 1987). 
They isolated 28 lethal mutations, 24 of which mapped to LGV.  We 
substituted the balancer eT1(III,V) for nT1(IV,V).  At least two of 
the 24 lethals on LGV balanced by nT1 were not balanced by eT1, these 
were not analyzed further.  Of the rest: one was too sick to work with;
six are still being analyzed; two define new genes (let-448 and let-
449 both of which are on LGV); seven are deficiencies which break in 
various places, but all of these deficiencies uncover the left most 
known gene on the chromosome; and six other strains have lethal 
mutations that fail to complement lin-40.  Using the six lin-40 Tc1 
mutations we hope to clone the lin-40 gene.  To do this we have 
extracted DNA from the six strains.  We then digested the DNA with 
EcoRI, ran it on a gel, transferred the DNA to a filter and hybridized 
nick translated Tc1 DNA to it.  We noted that three strains show a 
common band shift and two of these three strains have several shifted 
bands.  This research has been supported by NSERC and MDA (Canada) 
grants to DLB.