: Sex-linked Inheritance in Drosophila by Bridges Calvin B Calvin Blackman Morgan Thomas Hunt - Heredity; Drosophila

@FreeBooks

Posted in: #FreeBooks #FreeBooksIndia #FreeBooksApp #gg

Vote Up Vote Down   0 Reactions

Login to give Reaction!

PAGE.

Mendel's law of segregation 5 Linkage and chromosomes 5

Crossing-over 7

The Y chromosome and non-disjunction 8

MENDEL'S LAW OF SEGREGATION.

LINKAGE AND CHROMOSOMES.

The sons get their single X chromosome from their mother, and should therefore show any character whose gen is carried by such a chromosome. In sex-linked inheritance all sons show the characters of their mother. A male transmits his sex-linked character to his daughters, who show it if dominant and conceal it if recessive. But any daughter will transmit such a character, whether dominant or recessive, to half of her sons. The path of transmission of the gen is the same as the path followed by the X chromosome, received here from the male. Many other combinations show the same relations. In the case of non-disjunction, to be given later, there is direct experimental evidence of such a nature that there can no longer be any doubt that the X chromosomes are the carriers of certain gens that we speak of as sex-linked. This term is intended to mean that such characters are carried by the X chromosome. It has been objected that this use of the term implies a knowledge of a factor for sex in the X chromosome to which the other factors in that chromosome are linked; but in fact we have as much knowledge in regard to the occurrence of a sex factor or sex factors in the X chromosome as we have for other factors. It is true we do not know whether there is more than one sex-factor, because there is no crossing-over in the male , and crossing-over in the female does not influence the distribution of sex, since like parts are simply interchanged. It follows from this that we are unable as yet to locate the sex factor or factors in the X chromosome. The fact that we can not detect crossing-over under this condition is not an argument against the occurrence of linkage. We are justified, therefore, in speaking of the factors carried by the X chromosome as sex-linked.

CROSSING-OVER.

While the genetic evidence forces one to accept crossing-over between the sex chromosomes in the female, that evidence gives no clue as to how such a process is brought about. There are, however, certain facts familiar to the cytologist that furnish a clue as to how such an interchange might take place. When the homologous chromosomes come together at synapsis it has been demonstrated, in some forms at least, that they twist about each other so that one chromosome comes to lie now on the one side now on the other of its partner. If at some points the chromosomes break and the pieces on the same side unite and pass to the same pole of the karyokinetic spindle, the necessary condition for crossing-over will have been fulfilled.

THE Y CHROMOSOME AND NON-DISJUNCTION.

Ordinarily all the sons and none of the daughters show the recessive sex-linked characters of the mother when the father carries the dominant allelomorph. The peculiarity of non-disjunction is that sometimes a female produces a daughter like herself or a son like the father, although the rest of the offspring are perfectly regular. For example, a vermilion female mated to a wild male produces vermilion sons and wild-type daughters, but rarely also a vermilion daughter or a wild-type son. The production of these exceptions by a normal XX female must be due to an aberrant reduction division at which the two X chromosomes fail to disjoin from each other. In consequence both remain in the egg or both pass into the polar body. In the latter case an egg without an X chromosome is produced. Such an egg fertilized by an X sperm produces a male with the constitution XO. These males received their single X from their father and therefore show the father's characters. While these XO males are exceptions to sex-linked inheritance, the characters that they do show are perfectly normal, that is, the miniature or the bar or other sex-linked characters that the XO male has are like those of an XY male, showing that the Y normally has no effect upon the development of these characters. But that the Y does play some positive r?le is proved by the fact that all the XO males have been found to be absolutely sterile.

The evidence is equally positive that sex is quantitatively determined by the X chromosome--that two X's determine a female and one a male. For in the case of non-disjunction, a zero or a Y egg fertilized by an X sperm produces a male, while conversely an XX egg fertilized by a Y sperm produces a female. It is thus impossible to assume that the X sperms are normally female-producing because of something else than the X or that the Y sperm produce males for any other reason than that they normally fertilize X eggs. Both the X and the Y sperm have been shown to produce the sex opposite to that which they normally produce when they fertilize eggs that are normal in every respect, except that of their X chromosome content. These facts establish experimentally that sex is determined by the combinations of the X chromosomes, and that the male and female combinations are the causes of sex differentiation and are not simply the results of maleness and femaleness already determined by some other agent.

Free books android app tbrJar TBR JAR Read Free books online gutenberg

(0)

Login to post a comment!