Worm Breeder's Gazette 9(1): 77
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.
In response to appreciated criticism at the Cold Spring Harbor worm meeting, we have extended our biochemical analysis of dosage compensation to control for possible complications caused by differences in anatomy and hence gene expression in males and hermaphrodites. We have measured the relative transcript levels of the two myosin genes (myo-1(I), expressed in the pharynx, a tissue which is nearly identical in males and hermaphrodites. (We made gene-specific probes from clones of myo-1 and myo-2 obtained from J. Karn.) Transcript levels for myo-2 were found to be identical in X0 males and XX hermaphrodites when normalized to the levels of myo-1. In addition the level of myo-2 in hermaphrodites bearing a mutation in either dpy-21, ted by 2-3 fold compared to the level of myo-2 in wild-type hermaphrodites (when normalized to myo-1). This set of observations is in agreement with those we presented at the meeting using act-1, omal probes and other X-specific probes. In our assays act-4(X) behaves differently from other X-specific genes in that the level of act-4 is not elevated in dpy-21, odites although the level in males and hermaphrodites appears to be identical (when normalized to act-1,