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Mutants affecting position-effect heterochromatinization in Drosophila melanogaster

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Abstract

The dominant suppressor Su(var)b 101 and the dominant enhancer En(var)c 101 were found to affect significantly white variegation in a strongly variegating line of the w m4chromosome (w m4h) which has been used as standard rearrangement for a genetic dissection of position-effect variegation (Reuter and Wolff, 1981). Both mutations were also shown to affect position-effect heterochromatisation in T(1;4)w m258-21and variegation in all the rearrangements tested (white, brown, scute and bobbed variegation). These results suggest that the genes identified encode functions essential for the manifestation of gene inactivation in position-effect rearrangements. It seems also reasonable to assume that in all the rearrangements tested identical heterochromatisation processes lead to inactivation of the genes whose phenotype is variegated.

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Reuter, G., Werner, W. & Hoffmann, H.J. Mutants affecting position-effect heterochromatinization in Drosophila melanogaster . Chromosoma 85, 539–551 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00327349

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