PREFACE
____________________________________________________________________
The last twenty years have witnessed a remarkable expansion
in the definition of the Drosophila genome. The emergence of
Drosophila as an organism of choice for molecular-genetic
investigations of eukaryotic biology has attracted a large
number of talented workers to the field, and the rapid
advances in molecular technology have provided new and sophis-
ticated tools and generated novel kinds of information.
This work is a revision of "The Genetic Variations of Droso-
phila melanogaster" by D. L. Lindsley and E. H. Grell, which
appeared in 1968 and was essentially a complete catalogue of
mutations and chromosome rearrangements of Drosophila melano-
gaster as of the end of 1966. The present volume purports to
be such a catalogue current until the end of 1989. The illus-
trations are primarily the work of Edith M. Wallace, the
artist employed by T. H. Morgan; they were mostly drawn
between 1920 and 1940. The same illustrations were used in
"The Genetic Variations of Drosophila melanogaster and its
predecessor "The Mutants of Drosophila melanogaster" by Calvin
B. Bridges and Katherine S. Brehme. At the time of the 1968
publication, genes were identified exclusively through the
existence of mutant alleles; the only wild-type alleles con-
sidered were electrophoretic variants of a few enzymes, and
the only gene for which there was any molecular information
was bb. Amino-acid and nucleotide sequencing and the polym-
erase chain reaction were concepts for the future; cloning of
DNA sequences had not been imagined; transposable elements,
hybrid dysgenesis, and transformation were unsuspected. These
technological advances have shifted the emphasis to normal
gene structure and function rather than exclusive considera-
tion of mutant alleles. This shift in emphasis is reflected in
the title of the present volume, "The Genome of Drosophila
melanogaster". The ability to identify a gene from either its
protein product or the homologous product from another
species, rather than the converse has lead to the discovery of
many new genes for which no variant had been previously recog-
nized. In addition new genes with interesting expression pat-
terns are being discovered in enhancer-detection lines.
Interim versions of the majority of the material contained
herein have appeared in the form of volumes 62, 64, 65, and 68
of Drosophila Information Service. This volume contains infor-
mation on upwards of 4000 genes and 9000 chromosome rearrange-
ments. There are categories of effects, little if at all
represented in the 1968
edition, that have assumed major proportions in the present
version. These include developmental mutations, behavioral
mutations, female-sterile mutations, meiotic and mitotic muta-
tions, Y-autosome translocations, and transposable elements;
in addition many regions of the genome have been subjected to
saturation mutagenesis so that large numbers of lethally mut-
able loci have been identified and deficiency mapped. A major
consequence of the mapping efforts, utilizing both chromosome
rearrangements and in situ hybridization, is that the polytene
map has displaced the recombination map as the more useful
standard. The 1968 volume was subdivided into seven sections:
Mutations, Chromosome Aberrations, Special Chromosomes, Cyto-
logical Markers, Departures from Diploidy, Nonchromosomal
Inheritance, and Wild Type Stocks. In the present version, the
section on Wild-Type Stocks has been eliminated, new sections
on Transposable Elements and DNA Sequences have been added,
and a molecular biology category has been added to the
descriptions of genes and rearrangements if the information is
available.
We are grateful to our colleagues throughout the world for
their contributions and corrections to draft copies. Those who
have submitted entries or sections of entries are acknowledged
on the first line of the entry. Special thanks are due to a
number of colleagues whose efforts on behalf of this volume
have been more than substantial. In particular, Jeff Hall has
provided almost all of the material on behavioral and neuronal
genes; George Lefevre and especially his colleague, Catherine
Coyle-Thompson, provided massive amounts of information and
corrections to the sections on X-linked lethals; Trudi Schup-
bach provided descriptions of female-sterile and maternal-
effect-lethal mutations. Jim Boyd and Scott Hawley provided
the entries on mutagen-sensitive and meiotic mutants, respec-
tively. Michael Ashburner has been especially helpful in keep-
ing us supplied with his encyclopedic lists of mutations,
chromosome rearrangements, and references; in addition he has
gone over the draft copies of the work and provided detailed
additions and corrections. Finally, Loring Craymer and Abraham
Schalet were most helpful in reviewing material and pointing
out errors and omissions.
We apologize for the omissions, inconsistencies, and errors
in this compilation. Every time we reread it we find new ones,
but mercifully, revision has to stop sometime.
D.L.L.
G.G.Z.