Effects on sperm morphology by alleles at the pink-eyed dilution locus in mice

Sperm head morphology was analyzed in all genotypic combinations for alleles dark pink-eye (pd) and p-sterile alleles, p6H, pbs (p-black-eyed sterile) and p25H. Three of these, p6H, pbs and p25H, were radiation induced; homozygotes and heterozygotes of these three alleles are male sterile, whereas pd/--genotypes are fertile. Sperm heads were examined by light microscopy and assigned to one of five classes: A. normal and near-normal, B. triangulate and oblate, C. spatulate, D. elongate, and E. filamentous. Males of each sterile genotype had grossly abnormal sperm and each sterile genotype differed from all other sterile genotypes and from fertile genotypes in at least one class, except p6H/p6H compared to pbs/pbs. Frequency distribution profiles (1) revealed a complex pattern of allelic interaction and do not support a deletion-complementation hypothesis, (2) do not show simple bimodality, which might suggest post-meiotic (haploid) gene expression, and (3) together with unpublished breeding data, show that p25H is not a remutation of p6H.