Complementation analysis of late lethal mutants of Drosophila melanogaster.

Late larval and pupal lethal mutants of Drosophila define those gene functions which are essential for the development of pupae (metamorphosis) but not for embryonic or larval development. In a previous report the isolation of a large number of such mutants was outlined, and a description of the imaginal disc defects in those mutants was described. This report concerns genetic analysis of those mutants. 3746 different pairwise combinations of mutants have been tested for complementation. Only 10 pairs fail to complement. In all of the cases tested, the lethal mutation in each member of a non-complementing pair has a similar map location. In addition to the non-complementing pairs one group of seven partially-complementing mutants has been identified. Comparisons of the imaginal disc defects within the non-complementing pairs and the lethal hybrids formed by the respective pairs were made to test for uniformity of phenotype. No significant qualitative differences were detected between any non-complementing pairs or their respective hybrids.