A male-specific lethal mutation in Drosophila melanogaster that transforms sex.

Sex-lethal, male-specific allele #1 (Sxl^M#1, 1–19.2) is a dominant, X-linked mutation that is lethal to males. It has no effect in females other than to rescue them from the otherwise lethal maternal effect of the autosomal mutation, daughterless. From a study of the effects of Sxl^M#1 on the development of sexually mosaic flies (gynandromorphs), it was observed that this lethal mutation can cause genetically male (haplo-X) tissue to differentiate as if it were female. With respect to its effect on sexual differentiation, the mutation transformer (tra, 3–45) is epistatic to Sxl^M#1, though the lethal effects of Sxl^M#1 are not modified by tra. In addition to its effect on sexual differentiation, Sxl^M#1 reduces the size of haplo-X imaginal disc and histoblast derivatives in general in a cell autonomous fashion. The viability of gynandromorphs with Sxl^M#1 tissue is very low, and the surviving mosaics have relatively little haplo-X tissue, suggesting that there is no single localized “lethal focus” for this mutation. The relationship between Sxl and daughterless is discussed, as well as the possible involvement of the Sxl locus in X-chromosome dosage compensation.