Dunce mutants of Drosophila melanogaster: mutants defective in the cyclic AMP phosphodiesterase enzyme system.

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Abstract
The cAMP and cGMP phosphodiesterase activities present in Drosophila flies of 6 mutant strains of the dunce gene and in the parent wild-type strains are characterized. All of the mutants exhibit aberrant cAMP metabolism. The mutant strains dunceM14, dunceM11 and dunceML appear to be amorphic, because they completely lack the cAMP-specific phosphodiesterase normally present in adult flies. These strains exhibit extremely high levels of cAMP. The mutant strains dunce1, dunce2 and dunceCK are hypomorphic and exhibit reduced levels of the cAMP-specific phosphodiesterase. These strains exhibit less marked increases in cAMP content compared with the 3 amorphic strains. The dunce2 strain possesses a residual enzyme activity that exhibits anomalous kinetics compared with those of the normal enzyme. The possibility that the dunce locus is the structural gene for the cAMP-specific phosphodiesterase is discussed.