Partial rescue of embryos from two maternal-effect neurogenic mutants by transplantation of wild-type ooplasm.

We show that embryos produced by Drosophila females homozygous for the maternal-effect neurogenic mutations almondex and pecanex can be partially rescued by microinjection of wild-type ooplasm. In addition, we demonstrate that these mutations fully complement one another with respect to this assay, as they do by classical genetic criteria. Finally, we show that embryos from both mutations cease to be rescuable after the establishment of the syncytial blastoderm. The significance of these results for our understanding of the neurogenic phenotype is discussed.