Using the P[wHy] hybrid transposable element to disrupt genes in region 54D-55B in Drosophila melanogaster

Understanding the function of each gene in the genome of a model organism such as Drosophila melanogaster is an important goal. The development of improved methods for uncovering the mutant phenotypes of specific genes can accelerate achievement of this goal. The P[wHy] hybrid transposable element can be used to generate nested sets of precisely mapped deletions in a given region of the Drosophila genome. Here we use the P[wHy] method to generate overlapping, molecularly defined deletions from a set of three P[wHy] insertions in the 54E-F region of chromosome 2. Deletions that span a total of 0.5 Mb were identified and molecularly mapped precisely. Using overlapping deletions, the mutant phenotypes of nine previously uncharacterized genes in a 101-kb region were determined, including identification of new loci required for viability and female fertility. In addition, the deletions were used to molecularly map previously isolated lethal mutations. Thus, the P[wHy] method provides an efficient method for systematically determining the phenotypes of genes in a given region of the fly genome.