New cases of one-winged flies in Drosophila subobscura.

 

Pastor, M., L. Abad, and F. Mestres.  Dept. Genètica, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, 08071 - Barcelona (Spain).

                  To obtain homokaryotypic chromosomal lines of D. subobscura from the Chilean populations of Santiago de Chile and Puerto Montt, crosses were carried out using the Va/Ba balanced lethal strain.  In the Santiago de Chile population out of 118 lines analyzed, 1 (0.847 %) presented many flies with only one wing.  In the Puerto Montt population this trait represented 4.202% (out of 119 lines, 5 presented one-winged flies).  This latter value is very similar to that obtained in Bordils, Spain (4.225 %) and Gilroy, California (4.102 %) (Mestres and Busquets, 1991).  These results seem to confirm that one-winged flies arise due to genetic factors located in the Va/Ba strain (Mestres and Busquets, 1991;  Orengo and Mestres, 1993;  Orengo et al., 1997). 

                  Furthermore, flies with extreme Varicose phenotype and flies with almost normal wings were observed.  Thus, a wide range of expresivity of the Varicose gene has been detected during this research.

                  References:  Mestres, F., and D. Busquets 1991,  Dros. Inf. Serv. 70: 145-146;  Orengo, D.J., and F. Mestres 1993,  Rev. Bras. Genet. 16: 471-476;  Orengo, D.J., E. Hauschteck-Jungen and F. Mestres 1997, Bras. J. Genet. 20: 359-361.