Open AccessI–R system of hybrid dysgenesis in Drosophila melanogaster : analysis of the mitochondrial DNA in reactive strains exhibiting different potentials for I factor transposition[Note 1. Accession number of the sequence in the EMBL Nucleotide ...]
Author(s) -
Azou Yannick,
Bregliano JeanClaude
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
heredity
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.441
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1365-2540
pISSN - 0018-067X
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2540.2001.00814.x
Subject(s) - biology , mitochondrial dna , genetics , drosophila melanogaster , reactivity (psychology) , transposition (logic) , epigenetics , non mendelian inheritance , gene , medicine , linguistics , philosophy , alternative medicine , pathology
In the I–R hybrid dysgenesis system, Drosophila melanogaster strains fall into two categories denoted inducer (I) and reactive (R). Among the reactive strains we can distinguish strains with weak, medium or strong reactivity levels. These levels are inherited in a complex way involving both chromosomal and nonchromosomal determinants, the nonchromosomal determinant being mainly maternally inherited. We were interested in determining the molecular basis of this maternal transmission. In this article we analyse the possible implication of the mitochondrial DNA in the determination of the reactivity levels. The mtDNA was analysed in lines with very different reactivity levels with the aim of correlating sequence differences with reactivity levels. The mtDNA was analysed by sequencing and restriction fragment length. No correlation was established between reactivity level and mtDNA sequence. This may favour the hypothesis that epigenetic changes would be responsible for the different reactivity levels and their transgenerational transmission.