Sex-linked Inheritance in DrosophilaMorgan, Thomas Hunt
Science
Sex-linked Inheritance in Drosophila
Morgan, Thomas Hunt
Drosophila; Heredity
In January 1914 a vermilion female from a lethal 3 culture when bred to a
vermilion male gave 71 daughters and only 3 sons; 34 of these daughters
were tested, and every one of them gave a 2:1 sex-ratio. The explanation
advanced (Morgan 1914_c_) was that the mother of the high ratio was
heterozygous for lethal 3, and also for another lethal that had arisen by
mutation in the X chromosome brought in by the sperm. On this
interpretation the few males that survived were those that had arisen
through crossing-over. The rarity of the sons shows that the two lethals
were in loci near together, although here of course in different
chromosomes, except when one of them crossed over to the other. As
explained in the section on lethal 1 and 1_a_ the distance between the two
lethals can be found by taking twice the number of the surviving males
(2+3) as the cross-overs and the number of the females as the
non-cross-overs. But the 34 daughters tested were also non-cross-overs,
since none of them failed to carry a lethal. The fractions (6+0)/(71+34) =
6/105 give 5.7 as the distance between the lethals in question. In the case
of lethals 3 and 3_a_ another test was applied which showed graphically
that two lethals were present. Each of the daughters tested showed, by the
classes of her sons, the amount of crossing-over between white and that
lethal of the two that she carried. These cross-over values were plotted
and gave a bimodal curve with modes 7 units apart. It had already been
shown that the locus of one of the two lethals was at 26.5, and since the
higher of the two modes was at about 23, it corresponds to lethal 3. The
data and the curve show that the lethals 3 and 3_a_ are about 7 units
apart, _i. e._, lethal 3_a_ lies at about 19.5. {75}
LETHAL 1b.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account