Production of mosaic lethals in different germ cell stages of drosophila by N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine.

The delayed effect of N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine (MNNG) was studied in Drosophila melanogaster by the proportion of mosaic progeny produced after this treatment. Following injection of the chemical into wild type males, complete and mosaic sex-linked recessive lethals were scored by the Muller-5 method, in five successive broods representing the different stages of spermatogenesis. All broods showed significant increase over the control in the frequencies of complete lethals with gradual decrease in mutation rate from the post-meiotic stages to the pre-meiotic ones. In the case of mosaic lethals, too, the post-meiotic stages were generally more sensitive; but the increase over the control was significant only for the mature spermatozoa. The extension of the experiment to F4 generation showed that a mosaic F1 female may produce further mosaic progeny. The production of lethal mutations in successive generations after treatment with MNNG supports the view that chemically induced instabilities can be transmitted as such over several generations.