A female sterile screen of the Drosophila melanogaster X chromosome using hybrid dysgenesis: identification and characterization of egg morphology mutants.

We have conducted a hybrid dysgenic screen of the X chromosome for mutations affecting female fertility, with particular attention to those causing abnormal egg and eggshell morphology. In a screen of 4017 dysgenic strains, 398 mutants derived from 168 different germ lines were isolated and assigned to eight classes according to their diverse phenotypes. One interesting class consists of mutants that block oogenesis at specific stages. Our analysis has focused on mutations affecting eggshell formation, including mutants that lay morphologically abnormal sterile eggs as well as those that lay no eggs but exhibit blocks in the late stages of oogenesis. A subset of 48 mutants was assorted into 30 allelic groups by inter se complementation and genetically localized by interval mapping. Two multiallele complementation groups, de1 (7 alleles) and ne1 (8 alleles), were identified as well as five two-allele complementation groups. A search for alleles among mutants generated in other female sterile screens was unsuccessful, pointing to the distinctive nature of the dysgenic mutant collection. The single case of allelism determined in this study was one with a lethal allele of the Broad-Complex, l(1)npr, suggesting a possible involvement of ecdysone in choriogenesis. A subset of 18 dysgenic strains was analyzed for P element hybridization and 16 of these were found to have hybridization signals in the appropriate cytogenetic interval. By examining these signals in two or more alleles of the same complementation group, we have been able to tentatively localize two mutations. Light and electron microscopy of the eggshell in 43 different strains has revealed a variety of effects. The respiratory appendages were defective in 27 of these mutants. Effects on the ultrastructure of the main body of the endochorion were not strongly correlated with the appendage defects, and could be classified as minor (14 mutants) or major (16 mutants). Although 13 mutants showed no ultrastructural chorion defects, six of these had defective respiratory appendages.