[Research on the artificial regulation of sex in animals in the USSR]

The problem of artificial sex control was cardinally solved only for the silkworm among the domestic animals. The artificial sex control is realized by means of several methods. The artificial ameiotic parthenogenesis allows to obtain isogenic parthenogenetic progeny of only female sex. The meiotic parthenogenesis, on the contrary, gives only male progeny characterized by homozygosis by all genes. As a result of androgenesis with the participation of ooplasm and male nuclear material, only male progeny develops as well. Sex marked strains in which the female and male eggs are coloured in different may were obtained by means of translocation of the dominant genes controlling the egg colour on W chromosome determining the female sex. This allows readily to pick out the eggs of desirable sex only with the help of photoelectric equipment. The males of a specially raised strain balanced by two non-allelic sex-linked lethals, when being crossed with the females of any other strain, give male progeny only. The developed methods of sex control have found wide application in theoretical investigations of various directions and practical sericulture.