Sex-linked Inheritance in DrosophilaMorgan, Thomas Hunt
Science
Sex-linked Inheritance in Drosophila
Morgan, Thomas Hunt
Drosophila; Heredity
Whether a female bearing the same lethal twice (_i.e._, one homozygous for
a given lethal) would die, can not be stated, for no such females are
obtainable, because the lethal males, which alone could bring about {15}
such a condition, do not exist. The presumption is that a female of this
kind would also die if the lethal acts injuriously on some vital function
or structure.
Since only half of the daughters of the lethal-bearing females carry the
lethal, the stock can be maintained by breeding daughters separately in
each generation to insure obtaining one which repeats the 2:1 ratio. There
is, however, a much more advantageous way of carrying on the stock--one
that also confirms the sufficiency of the theory.
In carrying on a stock of a lethal, advantage can be taken of linkage. A
lethal factor has a definite locus in the chromosome; if, then, a
lethal-bearing female is crossed to a male of another stock with a
recessive character whose factor lies in the X chromosome very close to the
lethal factor, half the daughters will have lethal in one X and the
recessive in the other. The lethal-bearing females can be picked out from
their sisters by the fact that they give a 2:1 sex-ratio, and by the fact
that nearly all the sons that do survive show the recessive character. If
such females are tested by breeding to the recessive males, then the
daughters which do not show the recessive carry the lethal, except in the
few cases of crossing-over. Thus in each generation the normal females are
crossed to the recessive males with the assurance that the lethal will not
be lost. If instead of the single recessive used in this fashion, a double
recessive of such a sort that one recessive lies on each side of the lethal
is used, then in each generation the females which show neither recessive
will almost invariably contain the lethal, since a double cross-over is
required to remove the lethal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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