The Submicroscopic Structure of the Drosophila Egg

The wealth of mutants available in Drosophila provides unsurpassed opportunities for the study not only of the direct effects of genes on early embryological development but also of the complementary activities of the cytoplasm, which can be investigated in races in which ‘female-sterile’ genes have produced abnormal conditions in the egg. The most important pioneer in the study of gene effects was Poulson (1940), and since 1949 a number of similar problems, as well as related ones concerned with the development of female steriles, egg maturation, histo-chemistry, &c., have been taken up in this laboratory by workers such as Beatty, Yao, Counce, Ede, Pantelouris, Selman, Sirlin, Jacob (summarized Waddington, 1959). More recently a series of papers by King and his associates have discussed various aspects of the maturation of the Drosophila oocyte and the influence of female-sterile factors.