Mitotic and salivary gland chromosome analyses in the Musca domestica L. (house fly) (Diptera: Muscidae)

Abstract

The mitotic chromosomes in Musca domestica consist of five pairs of autosomes and an X, Y sex chromosome pair. They respond to C-banding with procentric bands on all autosomes and deep staining over most of the X and Y chromosomes. Polytene chromosomes were previously found in several larval and pupal tissue of Musca domestica. Polytene chromosome reference maps of the two sexual and the five autosomal chromosomes of Musca domestica from salivary gland cells are shown. Characteristic features of each chromosome are described identifying areas that are difficult to analyse.

The Karyotype of the Yellow Dung Fly,Scathophaga stercoraria, a Model Organism in Studies of Sexual Selection

“…The more intensive staining of sex chromosomes as compared with autosomes was consistent with previous work on other dipterans, e.g. the housefly M. domestica (El Agoze et al 1992). The homologous autosomes were closely associated with each other and arranged in pairs in most of the mitotic cell spreads.…”

“…A diploid chromosome complement of 12 chromosomes is concordant with other fly species, e.g. the housefly M. domestica (El Agoze et al 1992), the olive fruit fly Bactrocerca oleae (Mavragani-Tsipidou 2002), and several blow fly species e.g. Chrysomya megacephala and C. putoria (Ullerich 1976; Parise-Maltempi and Avancini 2001), C. chloropyga, C. varipes (Ullerich 1976) and C. bezziana (Bedo 1991).…”

“…These C-bands were not consistently visible on every autosome in all spreads. This was probably due to variation in the staining procedure as has been proposed for other insects (Bedo 1991; El Agoze et al 1992; Ullerich and Schöttke 2006). …”

“…The preparation of chromosome spreads was carried out according to El Agoze et al (1992) with slight modifications. Briefly, the neural ganglia of the larvae were dissected in 1% sodium citrate, and the gonads of the adults were dissected in Ringer solution.…”

No amicable divorce? Challenging the notion that sexual antagonism drives sex chromosome evolution

“…The fact that a single, recently acquired sex-determination gene such as Sry can be associated with heteromorphic sex chromosomes [99] indicates that multiple, segregating sexdetermination loci are not necessary for suppression of recombination to be initiated. Nonetheless, interactions with a sexually antagonistic locus might still be involved in the establishment of a new apical gene for sex determination [21].…”