Skip Navigation



Journal of Heredity Advance Access published online on July 17, 2009
Journal of Heredity, doi:10.1093/jhered/esp058
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Supplementary Data
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
101/1/11    most recent
esp058v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Utsuno, H.
Right arrow Articles by Asami, T.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Utsuno, H.
Right arrow Articles by Asami, T.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The American Genetic Association. 2009. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

Maternal Inheritance of Racemism in the Terrestrial Snail Bradybaena similaris

Hiroki Utsuno, and Takahiro Asami

From the Department of Biology, Shinshu University, Matsumoto 390-8621, Japan

Address correspondence to Takahiro Asami at the address above, or e-mail: asami99{at}shinshu-u.ac.jp.

In metazoan animals, almost every known mutation of visceral asymmetry, which presents the polarity of primary asymmetry established in early development, reverses development in only about half or fewer of homozygotes. However, in pulmonate snails, the dextral and sinistral alleles are traditionally known to determine the polarity of offspring with complete dominance, and thus, each parent should produce either dextral or sinistral progeny. Contrary to this expectation, we found a mutant that produces both chiral morphs (enantiomorphs) within the same clutches in Bradybaena similaris. This study demonstrates that the consistent production of both enantiomorphs is determined by a maternal effect of a recessive allele, which probably randomizes the polarity. In snails that copulate simultaneously and reciprocally, a left–right reversed strain cannot usually be established or rescued from inbreeding depression by ad hoc outbreeding because a rarely found single mutant cannot reproduce due to great difficulties of mating with the wild type and selfing. Moreover, the rare recessive homozygote cannot easily be detected because it often exhibits the wild-type phenotype in maternal inheritance and breeding difficulty hampers genotyping it by phenotyping its progeny. The present strain established by virtue of rare advantages will, therefore, provide unique opportunities to investigate whole-body enantiomorphs.

Key Words: chirality • gastropod • left–right asymmetry • maternal effect • pulmonate

Corresponding Editor: Stephen Karl

Received April 22, 2009
Revised June 17, 2009
Accepted June 24, 2009


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.