Worm Breeder's Gazette 6(1): 35
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.
Our analysis of the region around unc-15(I) has led to the construction of the following complementation map. In Waterston, et al.'s paper (1977), they reported that e73, e1215, and e1402 are complementing alleles of unc-15. These alleles all fail to complement e1214, a mutation that prevents the production of paramyosin. We have extended the complementation analysis to include three additional unc- 15 alleles: su228 and su2000 (from Henry Epstein and Janice Zengal) and st8 (from Bob Waterston). To our knowledge these are the only alleles of unc-15 in existence, but we would happily stand corrected on this fact. We would like to map any other alleles that exist. The diagram below illustrates the pattern of complementation for all but e1402 which is temperature sensitive (analysis in progress). All alleles fail to complement e1214 which 18 nullo for paramyosln. Failure to complement is indicated in the figure by overlapping lines. [See Figure 1] It is premature to speculate about the meaning of the complementation pattern for unc-15 alleles. However we hope to eventually understand the pattern by comparing the complementation data to genetic fine structure analysis of unc-15, recombinant DNA analysis of genomic clones for the unc-15 region, and protein chemistry of the paramyosin molecule. Currently, Peter Candido and we are analyzing cyanogen bromide fragments of wild type and mutant paramyosins. We hope by this analysis to correlate a portion of the intragenic recombination map with the peptide map. We are interested in understanding the organization of the unc-15 gene and the genes immediately around unc-15. As part of this analysis, I have constructed a partial fine structure map of unc-13. Two of the alleles mapped are suppressed by sup-5 and we take this as evidence that these alleles, e450 and e1091 map into the coding portion of unc-13. This map and the unc-15 map are illustrated below. The map is based on intragenic fine structure data (published in the November, 1980 Issue of Genetics), and two- and three-factor mapping data for e73 and e51. We are currently screening our genomic library ( constructed by Susan Bektesh, Seattle) for clone(s) of the unc-15 Eventually we hope to compare our genetic map with a recombinant DNA analysis of this region of the genome. [See Figure 2]
