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. 1988 Jun;85(11):3960–3964. doi: 10.1073/pnas.85.11.3960

Photophobe (Ppb), a Drosophila mutant with a reversed sign of phototaxis; the mutation shows an allele-specific interaction with sevenless.

D G Ballinger 1, S Benzer 1
PMCID: PMC280340  PMID: 3131766

Abstract

We have isolated a dominant behavioral mutation, Photophobe (Ppb), on the second chromosome of Drosophila melanogaster. Although wild-type flies are attracted towards green light, flies homozygous for the Ppb mutation avoid it over an intensity range of six logarithms. Ppb interacts in a dominant way with mutations in the sevenless (sev) gene, an X-chromosomal gene necessary for photoreceptor cell 7 differentiation in the Drosophila retina. Specific alleles of sev alter the Ppb behavioral phenotype; of eight sev alleles tested, two alleles enhanced the negative phototaxis of Ppb, whereas six alleles had the opposite effect. In no mutant combination of Ppb and sev was photoreceptor cell 7 restored. These data show that the sev gene, in addition to its role in the differentiation of photoreceptor cell 7, plays a role along with Ppb in a common visual information-processing pathway.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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