Worm Breeder's Gazette 11(2): 89
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.
Mup-1 (e2347) larvae hatch as curled up (kinked) dpy-ish worms with a smooth cuticle, a functional wild type pharynx and contracting body wall muscles with attachments across quadrants (WBG,10(3),104 and Worm Meeting 1989 abstract, 278). Location of three additional mup-1 alleles: A weak allele with 70% penetrance, mup-1(e2430), was recovered in a screen for larval lethals identical to the one in which mup-1(e2347) was isolated (WBG,10(3),104) . Mup-1 (e2430)/nDf3 larvae are mup (mup-1 maps 4.4 m.u. left of unc- 85 on II and is deleted in nDf3). To obtain an amorphic mup-1 allele we did a precomplementation screen: N2 males and hermaphrodites were mutagenized with EMS and mated. Individual F1 males were mated with two or three e2430/tra-2(q122gf) females on a small petri dish. Tra-2( q122gf) is a dominant feminizing mutation. All F1 offspring therefore arise from outcrossing. We screened 2300 plates for mup F1 and isolated 2 new mup-1 alleles, e2434 and e2436 (which also map left of unc-85 on chromosome II). The four alleles form the following allelic series (from weak to strong): e2430, e2436, e2347 and e2434. e2434 embryos are mups which die as L1. A certain percentage of e2434 embryos die as threefold mups in the egg shell. Suppression by dpy-10 and dpy-11. The two new hypomorphic alleles of mup-1(e2436 and e2430) are suppressed by dpy-10(e128) and dpy-11( e224) in a similar way as e2347 (see WBG, 10(3),104) while the stronger allele e2434 is not. Hypomorphic alleles of glp-1 are similarly suppressed by dpy-10 and dpy-11, while putative null alleles are not (Maine and Kimble (1989), Development 105, 133-143). Mup-1 may thus also be involved in a cell-surface or extracellular matrix process and mup-1(e2434) may be a mup-1 null allele. A putative null allele of dpy-10(m481) also suppresses mup-1(e2430) indicating that mup-1 does not interact directly with dpy-10. A general disruption of the ECM may improve the functioning of a partially active mup-1 product. We thank Tim Schedl for suggesting the use of tra-2(q122gf) for complementing mutants and precomplementation screening. We find it useful in a variety of crosses where offspring arising from selfing is undesirable. We thank J. Kramer for dpy-10(m481).