title: Caenorhabditis elegans deficiency mapping.
abstract: Six schemes were used to identify 80 independent recessive lethal deficiencies of linkage group (LG) II following X-ray treatment of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Complementation tests between the deficiencies and ethyl methanesulfonate-induced recessive visible, lethal and sterile mutations and between different deficiencies were used to characterize the extents of the deficiencies. Deficiency endpoints thus helped to order 36 sites within a region representing about half of the loci on LG II and extending over about 5 map units. New mutations occurring in this region can be assigned to particular segments of the map by complementation tests against a small number of deficiencies; this facilitates the assignment of single-site mutations to particular genes, as we illustrate. Five sperm-defective and five oocyte-defective LG II sterile mutants were identified and mapped. Certain deficiency-by-deficiency complementation tests allowed us to suggest that the phenotypes of null mutations at two loci represented by visible alleles are wild type and that null mutations at a third locus confer a visible phenotype. A segment of LG II that is about 12 map units long and largely devoid of identified loci seems to be greatly favored for crossing over.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002107:Caenorhabditis / Q000235:genetics*; D002872:Chromosome Deletion; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D005804:Genes, Lethal; D005808:Genes, Recessive; D005816:Genetic Complementation Test; D008040:Genetic Linkage; D008741:Methyl Methanesulfonate
chemical_list: D008741:Methyl Methanesulfonate