Worm Breeder's Gazette 4(1): 40a

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.

Title unknown.

Authors unknown.

At 25 C the isx-1(hc17ts) mutation abolishes spermatogenesis in 
hermaphrodites, making them females,and causes males to develop as 
sterile intersexes (Nelson et al., Dev.  Biol.66: 386-409, 1978).  I 
found that a double mutant strain, HC17E364, maintained itself at 16 C 
or 20 C as a population with half males.  Subsequently a mutation was 
segregated from the double that when combined with hc17ts abolishes 
spermatogenesis in hermaphrodites at all temperatures but leaves males 
fertile at 16 C or 20 C.  Therefore this strain maintains itself as an 
ordinary gonochoristic species, with separate males and females, at 16 
or 20 C.  At 25  males are intersex and sterile.  The second mutation 
has been tentatively assigned to a new gene gch which appears to be 
linked to chromosome II, but precise mapping is not complete.  The 
genetics has been frustrating because the female phenotype of isx,gch 
is suppressed to varying degrees by most standard morphological 
markers.  In the presence of isx the female phenotype of gch is semi-
dominant and shows a partial maternal effect.  It is intriguing that 
apparently only two mutations are necessary to convert C.  elegans 
from a hermaphrodite to a gonochoristic species.