Mutants of Caenorhabditis elegans with dumpy and rounded head phenotype

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Abstract
Mutations bearing morphological alterations in both head and body are reported in Caenorhabditis elegans. Although most dumpy mutants so far isolated have shorter bodies with normal head form, the mutants presented in this paper have rounded heads in addition to dumpy bodies. On examination with light‐ and scanning electron microscopes, defects in organs attached to the tip of head were not detected. The mutations were mapped as alleles of the dpy‐20 gene on linkage group IV. Segregation of the head abnormality from dumpy body was not detected upon examination of over 10,000 descendants from heterozygous offspring (F1), produced by crossing mutant hermaphrodites with wild‐type males. Revertants of dpy‐20 (cn142) allele were found to be almost wild‐type in both head and other body morphology, supporting the possibility that both phenotypes in these alleles have been produced by a single mutation. Genetic analyses of two other revertants are also presented in this report.