Worm Breeder's Gazette 5(2): 50a

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Title unknown.

Authors unknown.

The dominant mutation her-2(e1575) transforms both XX and X0 animals 
into females, i.e.  hermaphrodites that are self-sterile but cross-
fertile.  A small percentage of the heterozygotes (her-2/+) make a few 
sperm and therefore have a few self-progeny; homozygotes (her-2/her-2) 
never make sperm but are still cross-fertile.  The mutation has been 
mapped, and is located between vab-7 and dpy-18 on LGIII.  This is 
similar to the map position of tra-1, and it is therefore possible 
that her-2 is a mutation causing constitutive expression of the tra-1 
gene product.  Tests of this hypothesis are in progress.
Animals of genotype her-2/tra-1 are female; if they are fertilized 
by tra-1/tra-1 males, the progeny are all her-2/tra-1 females and tra-
1/tra-1 males, i.e.  the same as the parents.  Male/female strains of 
this type can be propagated by crossing for many generations (though 
in some cases rare wild types (probably recombinants between her-2 and 
tra-1) have eventually taken over).  In such strains, sex is entirely 
controlled by the state of LGIII, and the X chromosome genotype is 
irrelevant.  If the her-2 chromosome is designated W, and the tra-1 
chromosome is designated Z, then these strains have WZ heterogametic 
females and ZZ homogametic males (like birds and butterflies), in 
contrast to the sexes of the original N2 strain (XX homogametlc 
hermaphrodites and X0 heterogametic males).
Both tra-2 and tra-3 mutations are suppressed by her-2.