Androgenesis as Evidence for the Nature of X-Ray-Induced Injury

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Abstract
Androgenesis, the development of an organism from sperm nuclei in egg cytoplasm, is used as a source of evidence for the question of whether irradiated cytoplasm can affect untreated chromosomes introduced into it. Wild type unmated females of the parasitic wasp Habrobracon juglandis were X-rayed and mated to untreated recessive males. Androgenetic males were produced after doses up to 25 times that lethal to the egg nucleus. A highly significant difference between visible mutation rate in half sisters with one nucleus irradiated (5.49%) and that in androgenetic males (0%) suggests that mutations are not induced through an altered cytoplasm or, if so, that cytoplasmic change must be transitory.