The production of recessive lethals by calf-thymus DNA in Drosophila

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Abstract
Calf-thymus DNA was mixed with the larval food of Drosophila melanogaster and complete and mosaic lethals were scored in both the X- and 2nd chromosomes. There was a decided mutagenic effect on the 2nd chromosome in both sexes. No complete sex-linked lethals were produced in males, but the production of a moderate number of complete lethals in females and of mosaic lethals in both sexes suggests that, in the absence of germinal selection, the X-chromosome is not completely refractory to the treatment.The extension of the 2nd chromosome test to later generations showed that mosaics often gave rise to further mosaic progeny. Tests for allelism showed that lethals in the same mosaic line formed series of overlapping deficiencies, indicating that the primary effect in these cases was a transmitted instability of a narrow chromosomal region. Cases in which several mosaics arose out of one mosaic parent show that this instability must have replicated as instability.

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