Genetic background impacts the timing of synaptonemal complex breakdown in Drosophila melanogaster
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Genetic background impacts the timing of synaptonemal complex breakdown in Drosophila melanogaster Emily R. Wesley 1,2 & R. Scott Hawley 1,3
&
Katherine Kretovich Billmyre 1
Received: 14 July 2020 / Revised: 5 October 2020 / Accepted: 6 October 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Experiments performed in different genetic backgrounds occasionally exhibit failure in experimental reproducibility. This is a serious issue in Drosophila where there are no standard control stocks. Here, we illustrate the importance of controlling genetic background by showing that the timing of a major meiotic event, the breakdown of the synaptonemal complex (SC), varies in different genetic backgrounds. We assessed SC breakdown in three different control stocks and found that in one control stock, y w; svspa-pol, the SC broke down earlier than in Oregon-R and w1118 stocks. We further examined SC breakdown in these three control backgrounds with flies heterozygous for a null mutation in c(3)G, which encodes a key structural component of the SC. Flies heterozygous for c(3)G displayed differences in the timing of SC breakdown in different control backgrounds, providing evidence of a sensitizing effect of this mutation. These observations suggest that SC maintenance is associated with the dosage of c(3)G in some backgrounds. Lastly, chromosome segregation was not affected by premature SC breakdown in mid-prophase, consistent with previous findings that chromosome segregation is not dependent on full-length SC in mid-prophase. Thus, genetic background is an important variable to consider with respect to SC behavior during Drosophila meiosis. Keywords Genetic background . Meiosis . Synaptonemal complex
Introduction A cornerstone of genetics research is the assumption that phenotype is directly influenced by genotype. Researchers seek to minimize genetic noise and confounding variables by holding all variables constant. While researchers will often manipulate environmental variables to screen for phenotypic effects, the importance of genetic background is commonly overlooked. New mutants are rarely examined in different wild-type genetic backgrounds. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00412-020-00742-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * R. Scott Hawley [email protected] 1
Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Kansas City, MO 64110, USA
2
University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO 64110, USA
3
Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS 66160, USA
Nonetheless, genetic differences between background strains can have a tremendous impact on the reproducibility of experiments (Chandler et al. 2013). This is especially problematic in fields such as Drosophila research, where many different control stocks exist and there is no community standard for “wild type.” Furthermore, some studies fail to specify which stock was used as a control, disregarding the
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