Calvin B. Bridges

“ It has been objected that this use of the term implies a knowledge of a factor for sex in the X chromosome to which the other factors in that chromosome are linked; but in fact we have as much knowledge in regard to the occurrence of a sex factor or sex factors in the X chromosome as we have for other factors. It is true we do not know whether there is more than one sex-factor, because there is no crossing-over in the male (the heterozygous sex) , and crossing-over in the female does not influence the distribution of sex, since like parts are simply interchanged. ”

“ In the male there are two classes of sperm, one carrying the X chromosome and the other carrying the Y chromosome. Any egg fertilized by an X sperm produces a female; any egg fertilized by a Y sperm produces a male. The scheme of inheritance is as follows.
The sons get their single X chromosome from their mother, and should therefore show any character whose gen is carried by such a chromosome. In sex-linked inheritance all sons show the characters of their mother. A male transmits his sex-linked character to his daughters, who show it if dominant and conceal it if recessive. ”

“ A female that is heterozygous for bar has an eye that is intermediate between the rounded eye of the wild fly and the narrow band of the bar stock. This heterozygous bar female is always readily distinguishable from the normal, but can not always be separated from the pure bar. Bar is therefore nearly always used as a dominant and back-crosses are made with normal males.
Bar is the most useful sex-linked character so far discovered, on account of its dominance, the certainty of its classification, and its position near the right end of the X chromosome. ”

“ CROSSING-OVER.
When two or more sex-linked factors are present in a male they are always transmitted together to his daughters, as must necessarily be the case if they are carried by the unpaired X chromosome. If such a male carrying, let us say, two sex-linked factors, is mated to a wild female, his daughters will have one X chromosome containing the factors for both characters, derived from the father, and another X chromosome that contains the factors that are normal for these two factors (the normal allelomorphs) . ”

“ If dominance is supposed to be a criterion as to "presence," then it should be pointed out that among the mutants of Drosophila a number of dominant types occur. But clearly we are not justified by these criteria in inferring anything whatever in regard to the nature of the change that takes place in the germ-plasm. Probably the only data which give a basis for attempting to decide the nature of the change in the germ-plasm are from cases where multiple allelomorphs are found. ”

“ Ordinarily all the sons and none of the daughters show the recessive sex-linked characters of the mother when the father carries the dominant allelomorph. The peculiarity of non-disjunction is that sometimes a female produces a daughter like herself or a son like the father, although the rest of the offspring are perfectly regular. For example, a vermilion female mated to a wild male produces vermilion sons and wild-type daughters, but rarely also a vermilion daughter or a wild-type son. ”

“ The lethal-bearing females can be picked out from their sisters by the fact that they give a 2:1 sex-ratio, and by the fact that nearly all the sons that do survive show the recessive character. If such females are tested by breeding to the recessive males, then the daughters which do not show the recessive carry the lethal, except in the few cases of crossing-over. Thus in each generation the normal females are crossed to the recessive males with the assurance that the lethal will not be lost. ”

“ By mating to bar alone we could only get the linkage to bar without discovering on which side of bar the new factor lies, but by mating to a fly that carries still another sex-linked factor, known to lie to the left of bar, the information gained should show the relative order of the factors involved. Furthermore, since, by making a back-cross, both males and females give the same kind of data (and need not be separated) , the experiment was made in this way. In order to have material for such an experiment double mutant stocks of vermilion fused and also of bar fused were made up. ”

“ Later work has revealed the nature of the sterility of the female. The ovaries are present and in the young flies appear normal, but while in the normal flies the eggs in the posterior portion enlarge rapidly during the first few days after hatching, in the rudimentary females only a very few (about 15) eggs enlarge. The other eggs in the ovary remain at a lower stage of their development. Rarely the female lays a few eggs; when she does so some of the eggs hatch, and if she has been mated to a rudimentary male, the offspring are rudimentary females and males. ”

“ Although in the F2 results there are two genotypic classes of females, namely, pure eosin and eosin-cherry compound, the eye-colors are so nearly the same that they can not be separated. The two classes of males can be readily distinguished; of these, one class, cherry, has the same color as the females, while the other class, eosin, is much lighter. Such an F2 group will perpetuate itself, giving one type of female (of three possible genotypic compositions, but somatically practically homogeneous) and two types of males, only one of which is like the females. ”

“ The only effect which the extra Y has is as an extra wheel in the machinery of synapsis and reduction; for, on account of the presence of the Y, both X's of the XXY female are sometimes left within the ripe egg, a process called secondary non-disjunction. In consequence, an XXY female regularly produces exceptions (to the extent of about 4 per cent) . A small percentage of reductions are of this XX-Y type; the majority are X-XY. The XY eggs, produced by the X-XY reductions, when fertilized by Y sperm, give XYY males, which show no influence of the extra Y except at synapsis and reduction. ”

“ It is true that females carrying two different lethals might arise and not die, because the injurious effect of each lethal would be dominated by its allelomorph in the other X chromosome. Such females can not be obtained by combining two existing lethals, since lethal males do not survive. They can occur only through a new lethal arising through mutation in the homologous chromosome of a female that already carries one lethal. ”

“ In order to determine the location of facet in the first chromosome, one of the facet males which appeared in culture 66 was crossed out to vermilion sable females. Three of the wild-type daughters were back-crossed to vermilion sable males. The females of the next generation should give data upon the linkage of vermilion and sable, while the males should show the linkage of all three gens, facet, vermilion, and sable. ”

“ If red-eyed and white-eyed flies are put for several hours into alcohol, the yellowish body-color of the white-eyed flies is freely extracted, but not that of the red-eyed flies. In the living condition the difference between the body-colors of the red- and of the white-eyed flies is too slight to be visible, but after extraction in alcohol the difference is striking. ”

“ Those sons that get the lethal X will die, since the male having only one X lacks the power of containing both the lethal and its normal allelomorph. The other half of the sons will survive, but will not transmit the lethal factor. In all lethal stocks there are only half as many sons as daughters. ”

“ Competition among larvæ was found to be the chief factor in viability. Mass cultures almost invariably have extremely poor viability, even though an attempt is made to supply an abundance of food. Special tests (Morgan and Tice, 1914) showed that even those mutants which were considered the very poorest in viability were produced in proportions fairly close to the theoretical when only one female was used for each large culture bottle and the amount and quality of food was carefully adjusted. ”

“ As the cultures dry out the abnormal males are the first to change over to normal, then the heterozygous females, and lastly the homozygous females. It is doubtful if any far-reaching conclusion can be drawn from this series, because the first and second classes differ from each other not only in the presence of one or of two factors for abnormal, but also by the absence in the first case (male) of an entire X chromosome with its contained factors. ”

“ In May 1913 there appeared in a culture of flies with gray body-color a few males with a greenish-black tinge to the body and legs. The trident pattern on the thorax, which is almost invisible in many wild flies, was here quite marked. A green male was mated to wild females and gave in F2 a close approach to a 2:1:1 ratio. The green reappeared only in the F2 males, but the separation of green from gray was not as easy or complete as desirable. From subsequent generations a pure stock of green was made. A green female by wild male gave 138 wild-type females and 127 males which were greenish. ”

“ Here, then, is a character that is susceptible to the variations in the environment, yet whatever the realized condition of the soma may be, that condition has no effect whatever on the nature of the germ-plasm. A more striking disproof of the theory of the inheritance of acquired characters would be hard to find. ”

“ It is noticeable that there were fewer club females than club males, equality being expected, which might appear to indicate that the club condition is more often realized by the male than by the female, but later crosses show that the difference here is not a constant feature of the cross. ”

“ It is evident from these data that there must be present in the sex-chromosome a gen that causes the death of every male that receives this chromosome, and that this lethal factor lies very close to the factor for white eyes. ”

“ In a wet environment all the daughters are abnormal and the sons normal. As the culture dries out the daughters' color becomes normal in appearance. But while the sons {17}will never transmit abnormality to any of their descendants in any environment, the daughters will transmit (if bred to normal males) in a suitable environment their peculiarity to half of their daughters and to half of their sons. The experiment shows convincingly that the abnormal abdomen appears in a special environment only in those flies that have a given genotypic constitution. ”

“ The females of table 8 are all of one class (wild type) and are useless for this calculation except as a check upon viability. The cross-over value of 43 per cent shows that crossing-over is very free. We interpret this to mean that sable is far from yellow in the chromosome. Since yellow is at one end of the known series, sable would then occupy a locus somewhere near the opposite end. This can be checked up by finding its linkage relations to the other sex-linked factors. ”

“ If the gen is sex-linked the non-appearance of dot in the F1 males can be explained on the ground that males that are genetically dot show dot very rarely, or that its appearance is dependent upon the intensification by an autosomal factor of the effect produced by the sex-linked factor for dot. ”

“ While the wings of miniature usually extend backwards, they are sometimes held out at right angles to the body, and especially in acid bottles the miniature flies easily become stuck to the food or the wings become stringy, so that other wing characters are not easy to distinguish in those flies which are also miniature. At present vermilion, whose locus is at 33, in being used more frequently in linkage work. The locus of miniature at 36.1 is slightly beyond the middle of the chromosome. ”

“ By reference to table 65 it is seen that white and bar normally give only about 44 per cent of crossing-over in a two-locus experiment; lethal sc then is expected to be situated at least as far to the right as bar. Females heterozygous for lethal sc were therefore crossed to bar males, and their daughters were tested. The lethal-bearing daughters gave 144 cross-overs in a total of 1,734 males, that is, bar and lethal sc gave 8.3 per cent of crossing-over. Lethal sc therefore lies 8.3 units beyond bar or at about 66.5. ”

“ Since the amount of crossing-over between eosin {51}and miniature is over 30 per cent, the lethal factor must lie between eosin and miniature, somewhat nearer to eosin. It is impossible at present to locate lethal 2 accurately because of a real discrepancy in the data, which makes it appear that lethal 2 extends for a distance of about 5 units along the chromosome from about 10 to about 15. Work is being done which it is hoped will make clear the reason for this. ”

“ Hence segregation remains the cardinal point of Mendelism. Segregation is to-day Mendel's Law.
LINKAGE AND CHROMOSOMES.
It has been found that when certain characters enter a cross together (i. e., from the same parent) their factors tend to pass into the same gamete of the hybrid, with the result that other ratios than the chance ratios described by Mendel are found in the F2 generation. {6}Such cases of linkage have been described in several forms, but nowhere on so extensive a scale as in the pomace fly, Drosophila ampelophila. ”

“ In pure cultures kept moist with abundance of fresh food all the flies that hatch for the first few days have the black bands of the abdomen obliterated or made faint and irregular. As the bottles get dry and the food becomes scarce the flies become more and more normal, until at last they are indistinguishable from the normal flies. ”