AbstractsBiology & Animal Science

Traditional screens for female sterile mutants have revealed only two genes which when mutant, give a fully penetrant 16 nurse cell phenotype. One way to gain a better understanding of the function of these genes in oocyte determination, is to identify genes which interact with them. Using P-element mutagenesis, I have isolated one dominant suppressor and five dominant enhancers of Bicaudal-D, and begun the phenotypic and molecular characterization of three of these genes. By deficiency screening, I have identified two different loci which act as dominant enhancers of Bic-D, and eight different loci which act as dominant suppressors of Bic-D. Further work on defining the locus responsible for the strong suppression phenotype associated with one of these deficiencies, revealed betaH-spectrin to be a strong dominant suppressor of loss-of-function Bic-D alleles, and a strong dominant enhancer of Bic-D gain-of-function alleles.