--Peter A. Peterson

In a previous report (MNL:59) it was established that the mutability of this allele is En-dependent. The phenotype of this allele (without mutability) is a basic colored background that mutates to colorless sectors (C to C-I). This would indicate that the insert suppresses the C-I transcript (no suppression of anthocyanin color in C-I-m/C) and subsequent excisions lead to release of that suppression followed by restoration of the C-I effect (inhibition of color). That En causes the sectoring is supported by the correlative effect of En on wx-m8, a reporter allele for En. In the cross C x C-I-m/C sh bz wx colored and colored-with-sectors kernels were tested. In all cases, the colored selections were the C sh bz chromosome and the sectored kernels were the C-I Sh Bz chromosome. This is not absolute that it is En at the locus since sectoring should always be accompanied by wx sectoring with the wx-m8 allele. The exception (lack of wx sectoring) may be due to change in wx-m8 to a non-responsive allele, which is a common event.

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