Isolation of Drosophila flightless mutants which affect myofibrillar proteins of indirect flight muscle.

A large number of dominant flightless mutants of Drosophila were chemically induced, and their thorax proteins were examined by chemically induced, and their thorax proteins were examined by means of two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (O'Farrell 1975). Among them, 26 lines were found to have deficiency or reduction of some of myofibrillar proteins in indirect flight muscle (IFM). The gel patterns of the mutants could be classified into eleven groups. In general, more than a few polypeptides were either absent or reduced in each mutant line. Although the mutations affect myofibrillar proteins in apparently complex and diverse ways, logical correlations were found among the changes. There are pairs of proteins which always change together when a number of mutants are compared. There are also many pairs in which presence of one protein is necessary, but not sufficient for presence of the other. This suggests that absence of one component leads to disappearance or reduction of others which are either spatially or functionally related to the former. The correlation is possibly due to a hierarchy of the proteins in the myofibrillar assembly processes. Chromosomal loci of eleven typical mutants were examined, and it was found that most of them are located in two small regions of the second and the third chromosomes. IFM myofibrils of these mutants are either abnormal or absent in homozygotes as well as in heterozygotes.