Worm Breeder's Gazette 6(1): 39
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.
Approximately 75 strains defining 16 complementation groups have been isolated in the process of identifying genes that affect vulval cell lineages. MT300 is unique among this set of strains in that the vulvaless defect appears to be associated with a chromosomal aberration, probably a reciprocal translocation between chromosomes IV and V. We have named this translocation nT1(IV;V). We do not know if nT1 itself or a .mutation closely linked to nT1 confers the lineage defect. The nT1 homozygote is a slow-growing, slightly skinny vulvaless (Vul) animal with a brood size ranging from 15 to 35. The nT1(IV)/+; gote is phenotypically wild-type. Three lines of evidence support the hypothesis that MT300 contains a reciprocal translocation. First, mutations on LGIV and LGV are linked when segregating from an nT1 heterozygote. Second, the heterozygote segregates about 10/16 dead eggs, as expected for a reciprocal translocation. Third, nT1 suppresses crossing-over on the right arm of LGIV and on the left arm of LGV; nT1 does not suppress crossing- over on the left arm of LGIV or on the right arm of LGV. nT1 complements all known cell lineage mutations LGIV and LGV. nT1 is a convenient balancer for regions of chromosomes IV and V. It is available from the C. elegans stock center as strain MT1000: nT1(IV)/unc-5(e53) IV; nT1(V)/dpy-11(e224) V. [See Figure 1]