A New Mutant in the Progeny of Mice Treated with Nitrogen Mustard

Abstract

THE ability of the mustard compounds to induce gene mutations and chromosome re-arrangements was first detected in experiments with Drosophila melanogaster^1–3. Subsequent investigators showed that this ability extends to all organisms which so far have been tested : Neurospora⁴, Tradescantia⁵, Penicillium⁶, barley⁷, bacteria⁸ and Vicia⁹. There can be little doubt that the mutagenic ability of the mustards is as general as that of X-rays. On the other hand, there is no a priori reason for assuming that mustards applied to other organisms will exhibit the same peculiarities of genetical effect which have been found in the work with Drosophila, namely, a relative shortage of large re-arrangements², deferred action^10,11, and preferential action on immature sperm¹².