Genetic screening of meiotic mutations in mosaic clones of the Drosophila melanogaster female germline]

A method of screening for meiotic mutations based on genetic analysis of chromosome disjunction in germline mosaic clones of females homozygous for potential mutations is proposed. The clones are obtained at high frequency due to the use of the transgenic FLP/FRT system of mitotic recombination. This system permits obtaining homozygous clones in the first generation after mutagenesis, whereas the cultures are set up after selection for potential meiotic mutations. This significantly enhances, the efficiency of screening by the elimination of the limiting stage. Using this method, the following mutations were revealed in the 3L arm of Drosophila: ff6 leading to disturbed centriole disjunction, which results in appearance of multi-tail spermatids and three-pole spindles during male meiosis; ff3 leading to the formation of chromosome bridges in anaphase and telophase, chromosome nondisjunction, and premature chromatin condensation after metaphase; embryonic lethal ff29, with disturbed coordination between nuclear and centrosome cycles during syncytial cleavage; and a series of other mutations causing a wide spectrum of disturbances in male meiosis. Comparison of the proposed method with procedures of screening for yeast cell-cycle mutations showed that we succeeded in attaining the efficiency of screening in the Drosophila model close to that in the yeast model.