Worm Breeder's Gazette 2(2): 19
These abstracts should not be cited in bibliographies. Material contained herein should be treated as personal communication and should be cited as such only with the consent of the author.
The reproduction of hermaphrodite C. elegans has been studied using mas or fes mutations affecting spermatogenesis or oogenesis. The different genotypes show important reproductive changes from the wild- type. Also, mutations controlling sexual dimorphism can affect the worms reproduction. An incomplete sex transformer mutant tri has been isolated. This recessive mutation tri transforms one part of an XX hermaphrodite's progeny into phenotypic males, the other part having hermaphroditic phenotype is also partially transformed because the hermaphrodite exhibits a male tail with a vestigial copulatory bursa. These incompletely transformed hermaphrodites can be sterile or produce few progeny : 13 progeny at 18 C instead of 140 progeny for wild-type var. Bergerac. The fecund worms have a hermaphroditic gonad with both sperm and oocytes. No chromosomal anomalies during spermatogenesis or oogenesis can be observed with light microscopy. However worms that have produced progeny show enlargement's anomalies for ovocytes after the gonad's loop. It suggests that this mutation could also disturb enlarging oocytes. This non conditional mutant can be compared for its sexual phenotypic expression with tsB202 mutant studied by KLASS et al. (1976).