bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Suppressor U1 snRNAs in Drosophila.
Authors: Lo P C , Roy D , Mount S M 
Published: January 2021

Abstract
Although the role of U1 small nuclear RNAs (snRNAs) in 5' splice site recognition is well established, suppressor U1 snRNAs active in intact multicellular animals have been lacking. Here we describe suppression of a 5' splice site mutation in the Drosophila melanogaster white gene (wDR18) by compensatory changes in U1 snRNA. Mutation of positions -1 and +6 of the 5' splice site of the second intron (ACG[GTGAGT to ACC]GTGAGC) results in the accumulation of RNA retaining this 74-nucleotide intron in both transfected cells and transgenic flies. U1-3G, a suppressor U1 snRNA which restores base-pairing at position +6 of the mutant intron, increases the ratio of spliced to unspliced wDR18 RNA up to fivefold in transfected Schneider cells and increases eye pigmentation in wDR18 flies. U1-9G, which targets position -1, suppresses wDR18 in transfected cells less well. U1-3G,9G has the same effect as U1-3G although it accumulates to lower levels. Suppression of wDR18 has revealed that the U1b embryonic variant (G134 to U) is active in Schneider cells and pupal eye discs. However, the combination of 9G with 134U leads to reduced accumulation of both U1b-9G and U1b-3G,9G, possibly because nucleotides 9 and 134 both participate in a potential long-range intramolecular base-pairing interaction. High levels of functional U1-3G suppressor reduce both viability and fertility in transformed flies. These results show that, despite the difficulties inherent in stably altering splice site selection in multicellular organisms, it is possible to obtain suppressor U1 snRNAs in flies.
The effect of an intronic polymorphism on alcohol dehydrogenase expression in Drosophila melanogaster.
Authors: Laurie C C , Stam L F 
Published: January 2021

Abstract
Several lines of evidence indicate that natural selection controls the frequencies of an allozyme polymorphism at the alcohol dehydrogenase (Adh) locus in Drosophila melanogaster. However, because of associations among sequence polymorphisms in the Adh region, it is not clear whether selection acts directly (or solely) on the allozymic site. This problem has been approached by using in vitro mutagenesis to distinguish among the effects on Adh expression of individual polymorphisms. This study shows that a polymorphism within the first Adh intron (delta 1) has a significant effect on the level of ADH protein. Like the allozyme, delta 1 shows a geographic cline in frequency, indicating that it may also be a target of natural selection. These results suggest that multisite selection models may be required to understand the evolutionary dynamics of individual loci.
Enhancer traps in the Drosophila bithorax complex mark parasegmental domains.
Authors: McCall K , O'Connor M B , Bender W 
Published: January 2021

Abstract
Eight P elements carrying a beta-galactosidase (lacZ) reporter have been mapped to sites within the Drosophila bithorax complex. The bithorax complex contains three homeotic genes, and at least nine regulatory regions which control their expression in successive parasegments of the fly. The enhancer traps inserted at the promoter of one of the genes, Ultrabithorax, express lacZ in patterns which mimic the Ultrabithorax protein pattern. Enhancer traps in the regulatory regions do not mimic the endogenous genes, but express lacZ globally in the relevant parasegments. Some P elements carry large DNA fragments upstream of the lacZ promoter but internal to the P element. In cases where these internal sequences specify a lacZ pattern, that pattern is generally suppressed when the element is inserted in the bithorax complex. In embryos mutant for genes of the Polycomb group, the lacZ expression from the enhancer traps spreads to all segments. Thus, the enhancer traps reveal parasegmental domains that are maintained by Polycomb-mediated repression. Such domains may be realized by parasegmental differences in chromatin structure.
REMI-RFLP mapping in the Dictyostelium genome.
Authors: Kuspa A , Loomis W F 
Published: January 2021

Abstract
A set of 147 Dictyostelium discoideum strains was constructed by random integration of a vector containing rare restriction sites. The strains were generated by transformation using restriction enzyme-mediated integration (REMI) which results in the integration of linear DNA fragments into randomly distributed genomic restriction sites. Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) was generated in a single genomic site in each strain. These REMI-RFLP strains were used to confirm gene linkages previously supported by two other physical mapping techniques: yeast artificial chromosome (YAC) contig construction, and megabase-scale restriction mapping. New linkages were uncovered when two or more hybridization probes identified the same RFLP fragments. Probes for 100 genes have marked 53% of the RFLPs, representing greater than 22 Mb of the 40 Mb Dictyostelium genome. Alignment of these and other large fragments along each chromosome should lead to a complete physical map of the Dictyostelium genome.
Molecular evolution of the plant R regulatory gene family.
Authors: Purugganan M D , Wessler S R 
Published: January 2021

Abstract
Anthocyanin pigmentation patterns in different plant species are controlled in part by members of the myc-like R regulatory gene family. We have examined the molecular evolution of this gene family in seven plant species. Three regions of the R protein show sequence conservation between monocot and dicot R genes. These regions encode the basic helix-loop-helix domain, as well as conserved N-terminal and C-terminal domains; mean replacement rates for these conserved regions are 1.02 x 10(-9) nonsynonymous nucleotide substitutions per site per year. More than one-half of the protein, however, is diverging rapidly, with nonsynonymous substitution rates of 4.08 x 10(-9) substitutions per site per year. Detailed analysis of R homologs within the grasses (Poaceae) confirm that these variable regions are indeed evolving faster than the flanking conserved domains. Both nucleotide substitutions and small insertion/deletions contribute to the diversification of the variable regions within these regulatory genes. These results demonstrate that large tracts of sequence in these regulatory loci are evolving at a fairly rapid rate.
Controlling the type I and type II errors in mapping quantitative trait loci.
Authors: Jansen R C 
Published: January 2021

Abstract
Although the interval mapping method is widely used for mapping quantitative trait loci (QTLs), it is not very well suited for mapping multiple QTLs. Here, we present the results of a computer simulation to study the application of exact and approximate models for multiple QTLs. In particular, we focus on an automatic two-stage procedure in which in the first stage "important" markers are selected in multiple regression on markers. In the second stage a QTL is moved along the chromosomes by using the preselected markers as cofactors, except for the markers flanking the interval under study. A refined procedure for cases with large numbers of marker cofactors is described. Our approach will be called MQM mapping, where MQM is an acronym for "multiple-QTL models" as well as for "marker-QTL-marker." Our simulation work demonstrates the great advantage of MQM mapping compared to interval mapping in reducing the chance of a type I error (i.e., a QTL is indicated at a location where actually no QTL is present) and in reducing the chance of a type II error (i.e., a QTL is not detected).
A pleiotropic nonadditive model of variation in quantitative traits.
Authors: Caballero A , Keightley P D 
Published: January 2021

Abstract
A model of mutation-selection-drift balance incorporating pleiotropic and dominance effects of new mutations on quantitative traits and fitness is investigated and used to predict the amount and nature of genetic variation maintained in segregating populations. The model is based on recent information on the joint distribution of mutant effects on bristle traits and fitness in Drosophila melanogaster from experiments on the accumulation of spontaneous and P element-induced mutations. These experiments suggest a leptokurtic distribution of effects with an intermediate correlation between effects on the trait and fitness. Mutants of large effect tend to be partially recessive while those with smaller effect are on average additive, but apparently with very variable gene action. The model is parameterized with two different sets of information derived from P element insertion and spontaneous mutation data, though the latter are not fully known. They differ in the number of mutations per generation which is assumed to affect the trait. Predictions of the variance maintained for bristle number assuming parameters derived from effects of P element insertions, in which the proportion of mutations with an effect on the trait is small, fit reasonably well with experimental observations. The equilibrium genetic variance is nearly independent of the degree of dominance of new mutations. Heritabilities of between 0.4 and 0.6 are predicted with population sizes from 10(4) to 10(6), and most of the variance for the metric trait in segregating population is due to a small proportion of mutations (about 1% of the total number) with neutral or nearly neutral effects on fitness and intermediate effects on the trait (0.1-0.5 sigma P).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Genetic and statistical analyses of strong selection on polygenic traits: what, me normal?
Authors: Turelli M , Barton N H 
Published: January 2021

Abstract
We develop a general population genetic framework for analyzing selection on many loci, and apply it to strong truncation and disruptive selection on an additive polygenic trait. We first present statistical methods for analyzing the infinitesimal model, in which offspring breeding values are normally distributed around the mean of the parents, with fixed variance. These show that the usual assumption of a Gaussian distribution of breeding values in the population gives remarkably accurate predictions for the mean and the variance, even when disruptive selection generates substantial deviations from normality. We then set out a general genetic analysis of selection and recombination. The population is represented by multilocus cumulants describing the distribution of haploid genotypes, and selection is described by the relation between mean fitness and these cumulants. We provide exact recursions in terms of generating functions for the effects of selection on non-central moments. The effects of recombination are simply calculated as a weighted sum over all the permutations produced by meiosis. Finally, the new cumulants that describe the next generation are computed from the non-central moments. Although this scheme is applied here in detail only to selection on an additive trait, it is quite general. For arbitrary epistasis and linkage, we describe a consistent infinitesimal limit in which the short-term selection response is dominated by infinitesimal allele frequency changes and linkage disequilibria. Numerical multilocus results show that the standard Gaussian approximation gives accurate predictions for the dynamics of the mean and genetic variance in this limit. Even with intense truncation selection, linkage disequilibria of order three and higher never cause much deviation from normality. Thus, the empirical deviations frequently found between predicted and observed responses to artificial selection are not caused by linkage-disequilibrium-induced departures from normality. Disruptive selection can generate substantial four-way disequilibria, and hence kurtosis; but even then, the Gaussian assumption predicts the variance accurately. In contrast to the apparent simplicity of the infinitesimal limit, data suggest that changes in genetic variance after 10 or more generations of selection are likely to be dominated by allele frequency dynamics that depend on genetic details.
Proportion of genes survived in offspring conditional on inheritance of flanking markers.
Authors: Guo S W 
Published: January 2021

Abstract
In mammalian genetics and perhaps in human genetics as well, it is an interesting question as to how many offspring are needed in order to have a desired chance of preserving part of the entire genome of an individual. A more practical and perhaps more important question is: given k children and DNA marker data on a particular region of interest, what proportion of one's genes has been actually passed on to his children? To answer this question, I define the concept of identity by descent proportion, or IBDP for short. The IBDP is defined to be the proportion of genetic material shared identical by descent by a group of relatives in a specified chromosomal region. I provide a novel approach to computing the mean and variance of IBDP for k (&gt; or = 2) half-sibs based on marker data, thus providing a means to compute the mean and variance of proportion of genes survived. I first show that each chromosome in an offspring can be represented by a two-state Markov chain, with the time parameter being the map distance along the chromosome. On this basis, I will show that IBDP can be written as a stochastic integral and that the computation of the EIBDP can be reduced to evaluating an integral of some elementary functions. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the calculation.
Empirical threshold values for quantitative trait mapping.
Authors: Churchill G A , Doerge R W 
Published: January 2021

Abstract
The detection of genes that control quantitative characters is a problem of great interest to the genetic mapping community. Methods for locating these quantitative trait loci (QTL) relative to maps of genetic markers are now widely used. This paper addresses an issue common to all QTL mapping methods, that of determining an appropriate threshold value for declaring significant QTL effects. An empirical method is described, based on the concept of a permutation test, for estimating threshold values that are tailored to the experimental data at hand. The method is demonstrated using two real data sets derived from F(2) and recombinant inbred plant populations. An example using simulated data from a backcross design illustrates the effect of marker density on threshold values.
Structure-based systematic isolation of conditional-lethal mutations in the single yeast calmodulin gene.
Authors: Ohya Y , Botstein D 
Published: January 2021

Abstract
Conditional-lethal mutations of the single calmodulin gene in Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been very difficult to isolate by random and systematic methods, despite the fact that deletions cause recessive lethality. We report here the isolation of numerous conditional-lethal mutants that were recovered by systematically altering phenylalanine residues. The phenylalanine residues of calmodulin were implicated in function both by structural studies of calmodulin bound to target peptides and by their extraordinary conservation in evolution. Seven single and 26 multiple Phe--&gt;Ala mutations were constructed. Mutant phenotypes were examined in a haploid cmd1 disrupted strain under three conditions: single copy, low copy, and overexpressed. Whereas all but one of the single mutations caused no obvious phenotype, most of the multiple mutations caused obvious growth phenotypes. Five were lethal, 6 were lethal only in synthetic medium 13 were temperature-sensitive lethal and 2 had no discernible phenotypic consequences. Overexpression of some of the mutant genes restored the phenotype to nearly wild type. Several temperature-sensitive calmodulin mutations were suppressed by elevated concentration of CaCl2 in the medium. Mutant calmodulin protein was detected at normal levels in extracts of most of the lethal mutant cells, suggesting that the deleterious phenotypes were due to loss of the calmodulin function and not protein instability. Analysis of diploid strains heterozygous for all combinations of cmd 1-ts alleles revealed four intragenic complementation groups. The contributions of individual phe--&gt;ala changes to mutant phenotypes support the idea of internal functional redundancy in the symmetrical calmodulin protein molecule. These results suggest that the several phenylalanine residues in calmodulin are required to different extents in different combinations in order to carry out each of the several essential tasks.
Identification of X chromosome regions in Caenorhabditis elegans that contain sex-determination signal elements.
Authors: Akerib C C , Meyer B J 
Published: January 2021

Abstract
The primary sex-determination signal of Caenorhabditis elegans is the ratio of X chromosomes to sets of autosomes (X/A ratio). This signal coordinately controls both sex determination and X chromosome dosage compensation. To delineate regions of X that contain counted signal elements, we examined the effect on the X/A ratio of changing the dose of specific regions of X, using duplications in XO animals and deficiencies in XX animals. Based on the mutant phenotypes of genes that are controlled by the signal, we expected that increases (in males) or decreases (in hermaphrodites) in the dose of X chromosome elements could cause sex-specific lethality. We isolated duplications and deficiencies of specific X chromosome regions, using strategies that would permit their recovery regardless of whether they affect the signal. We identified a dose-sensitive region at the left end of X that contains X chromosome signal elements. XX hermaphrodites with only one dose of this region have sex determination and dosage compensation defects, and XO males with two doses are more severely affected and die. The hermaphrodite defects are suppressed by a downstream mutation that forces all animals into the XX mode of sex determination and dosage compensation. The male lethality is suppressed by mutations that force all animals into the XO mode of both processes. We were able to subdivide this region into three smaller regions, each of which contains at least one signal element. We propose that the X chromosome component of the sex-determination signal is the dose of a relatively small number of genes.
Enhancer of rudimentaryp1, e(r)p1, a highly conserved enhancer of the rudimentary gene.
Authors: Wojcik E , Murphy A M , Fares H , Dang-Vu K , Tsubota S I 
Published: January 2021

Abstract
A hybrid dysgenesis-induced mutation, enhancer of rudimentaryp1 (e(r)p1), is a recessive enhancer of a weak rudimentary mutant phenotype in Drosophila melanogaster. The e(r) gene was cloned using P element tagging and localized to region 8B on the X chromosome. It encodes a 1.0-kb and a 1.2-kb transcript. The 1.0-kb transcript is present in both adult males and females, while the 1.2-kb transcript is predominantly found in females. The difference in the lengths of the two e(r) transcripts is caused by two different polyadenylation sites spaced 228 bp apart. The amounts of both of these transcripts are drastically reduced in the e(r)p1 mutant. The P element in e(r)p1 is inserted in the 5'-untranslated leader region near the start of transcription. It may be producing its effect by suppressing transcription and/or by providing transcription termination and polyadenylation signals. The putative e(r) protein is 104 amino acids in length and bears no striking resemblance to protein sequences in GenBank or PIR. While its biochemical function is unknown at this time, sequence analysis indicates that the e(r) protein is highly conserved and, presumably, functionally very important. The amino acid sequences of the D. melanogaster and the Drosophila virilis proteins are 95% identical.
Transvection at the eyes absent gene of Drosophila.
Authors: Leiserson W M , Bonini N M , Benzer S 
Published: January 2021

Abstract
The Drosophila eyes absent (eya) gene is required for survival and differentiation of eye progenitor cells. Loss of gene function in the eye results in reduction or absence of the adult compound eye. Certain combinations of eya alleles undergo partial complementation, with dramatic restoration of eye size. This interaction is sensitive to the relative positions of the two alleles in the genome; rearrangements predicted to disrupt pairing of chromosomal homologs in the eya region disrupt complementation. Ten X-ray-induced rearrangements that suppress the interaction obey the same general rules as those that disrupt transvection at the bithorax complex and the decapentaplegic gene. Moreover, like transvection in those cases, the interaction at eya depends on the presence of normal zeste function. The discovery of transvection at eya suggests that transvection interactions of this type may be more prevalent than generally thought.
Estimating effective population size or mutation rate using the frequencies of mutations of various classes in a sample of DNA sequences.
Authors: Fu Y X 
Published: January 2021

Abstract
Mutations resulting in segregating sites of a sample of DNA sequences can be classified by size and type and the frequencies of mutations of different sizes and types can be inferred from the sample. A framework for estimating the essential parameter theta = 4Nu utilizing the frequencies of mutations of various sizes and types is developed in this paper, where N is the effective size of a population and mu is mutation rate per sequence per generation. The framework is a combination of coalescent theory, general linear model and Monte-Carlo integration, which leads to two new estimators theta xi and theta eta as well as a general Watterson's estimator theta K and a general Tajima's estimator theta tau. The greatest strength of the framework is that it can be used under a variety of population models. The properties of the framework and the four estimators theta K, theta tau, theta xi and theta eta are investigated under three important population models: the neutral Wright-Fisher model, the neutral model with recombination and the neutral Wright's finite-islands model. Under all these models, it is shown that theta xi is the best estimator among the four even when recombination rate or migration rate has to be estimated. Under the neutral Wright-Fisher model, it is shown that the new estimator theta xi has a variance close to a lower bound of variances of all unbiased estimators of theta which suggests that theta xi is a very efficient estimator.