Analysis of lethal (1) myospheroid mutants

Abstract

I report a characterization of several alleles of the myospheroid (mys) gene which encodes the beta-chain of the Drosophils PS integrins. Genetic analysis revealed that the mysˣᴿ, mutation is antimorphic and the mysˣᴺ mutation is hypomorphic. Protein was detected on Western blots from hemizygous mysˣᴿ and mysˣᴺ animals. No integrin beta-subunit was detected in in situ immunofluorescence assays in mysˣᴿ embryos. However, antigen was detected in a small subset of muscle attachment sites in mysˣᴺ embryos. mysˣᴳ and mysˣᴮ alleles behaved, genetically, as null alleles and no protein was detected on Western blots or in immunofluorescence assays. Complementation tests between mysᵗˢ¹, mysᵗˢ³, and the other lethal mys alleles unusual results which suggest that mys may be a transvecting locus.