A hybrid dysgenesis syndrome in Drosophila virilis

A new example of "hybrid dysgenesis" has been demonstrated in the F1 progeny of crosses between two different strains of Drosophila virilis. The dysgenic traits were observed only in hybrids obtained when wild-type females (of the Batumi strain 9 from Georgia, USSR) were crossed to males from a marker strain (the long-established laboratory strain, strain 160, carrying recessive markers on all its autosomes). The phenomena observed include high frequencies of male and female sterility, male recombination, chromosomal nondisjunction, transmission ratio distortion and the appearance of numerous visible mutations at different loci in the progeny of dysgenic crosses. The sterility demonstrated in the present study is similar to that of P-M dysgenesis in Drosophila melanogaster and apparently results from underdevelopment of the gonads in both sexes, this phenomenon being sensitive to developmental temperature. However, in contrast to the P-M and I-R dysgenic systems in D. melanogaster, in D. virilis the highest level of sterility (95-98%) occurs at 23-25 degrees. Several of the mutations isolated from the progeny of dysgenic crosses (e.g., singed) proved to be unstable and reverted to wild type. We hypothesize that a mobile element ("Ulysses") which we have recently isolated from a dysgenically induced white eye mutation may be responsible for the phenomena observed.