A Red Eye Colour Mutation in Culex pipiens after X-irradiation

Abstract

FOUR 1–2-day-old males of Culex pipiens were irradiated with a dose of 4,000 r. The mutant ‘red eye’ (r) was isolated from F₃ cultures of two of the irradiated males (♂ II and ♂ IV). From male II, there were three red-eyed females which arose out of a single F₂ brother–sister mating; from male IV, 80 red-eyed females and one red-eyed male from 14 F₂ brother–sister matings. According to the experimental procedure, this means that at least one sperm from male II and at least fourteen sperms from male IV carried the mutation r. Thus, the same mutation was recovered in parallel from two irradiated males. The clustered appearance of the mutation in male IV was presumably caused by the occurrence of the mutation in a spermatogonial cell.