Worm Breeder's Gazette 9(2): 78
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.
Three of the ts embryonic lethal mutants (e2141, e2142, and e2144) lack the anterior half of the pharynx but make the posterior half. They are allelic to each other and to e2072, a maternal effect embryonic lethal mutant isolated by James Priess (C. elegans meeting 1985, p.16). All of them are defective in the anterior part of the pharynx, which is normally derived from AB, whereas the posterior part, normally derived from MS, forms a rather normal posterior pharynx bulb. All 3 alleles have a temperature-sensitive period during early embryogenesis, suggesting that a maternally supplied product is exerting its function at this time. Two of the three (e2141 and e2144) have a second, postembryonic ts phase causing sterility, i.e. adults do not produce eggs or oocytes. It therefore seems that the wild type function of this gene is required for two not apparently related processes during development.