Accumulation of deleterious genes in a cage population of Drosophila melanogaster

Lethal and sterility mutations were accumulated in a cage population which was initiated with lethal- and sterility-free second chromosomes of D. melanogaster. It took about 2,000 days for the frequencies of these genes to reach equilibrium levels, i.e., 18% lethal and 9% male-sterile chromosomes. T...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Genetics (Austin) 1977-07, Vol.86 (3), p.657-664
Main Authors: Lee, Won Ho, Watanabe, Takao K
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alleles
Animals
Drosophila melanogaster
Female
Gene Frequency
Genes, Lethal
Genetics, Population
Homozygote
Infertility - genetics
Investigations
Male
Mutation
Probability
Time Factors
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Summary:Lethal and sterility mutations were accumulated in a cage population which was initiated with lethal- and sterility-free second chromosomes of D. melanogaster. It took about 2,000 days for the frequencies of these genes to reach equilibrium levels, i.e., 18% lethal and 9% male-sterile chromosomes. Two other cage populations which were initiated with random chromosomes sampled from natural populations and kept for more than eleven years in the laboratory showed 19-20% lethal content. The elimination rates of lethals by homozygosis in these populations were smaller than the mutation rate. By using NEI's formulae, the deleterious effect of a lethal gene in heterozygous condition (h) was estimated to be 0.035. The effective population number in the cage populations was estimated to be 1,000-2,900, while the actual population number was 3,500-7,800.
ISSN:0016-6731
1943-2631
1943-2631
DOI:10.1093/genetics/86.3.657