Low activity ssi-glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase variants in naturalpopulations of drosophila melanogaster

Abstract

Eleven Australian natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster were screened by electrophoresis for evidence of null and/or low activity variants at the Gdph locus. Of 5018 alleles investigated, 57 hadmarkedly lower GPDH activity, as judged by their heterozygous phenotypes, than control alleles. GPDHassays of 13 of these variant alleles showed that whilst they were heterogeneous in their properties andincluded electrophoretic variants and two categories of low-activity variant, there were no true null alleles.The most common low-activity variants exhibited dominance for GPDH activity in heterozygotes withnormal alleles, and were shown to share this property with an allele previously isolated from a London (UK)population (Langley etal., 1981). © 1991 The Genetical Society of Great Britain.