Repair in Fertilized Eggs of Mice and its Role in the Production of Chromosomal Aberrations

Summary

The fertilized egg may influence the yield of dominant-lethal mutations produced from chemical treatment of male postmeiotic germ cells to a small or large extent depending upon the mutagen used and the competence of the egg to repair the premutational lesions induced. The strain of females has little influence on the yield of dominant-lethal mutations induced by triethylenemelamine or ethyl methane-sulfonate in spermatids and spermatozoa, but it has a large influence in the case of isopropyl methanesulfonate. In addition to this difference, triethylenemelamine and ethyl methanesulfonate induce high levels of heritable translocations at these germ cell stages whereas isopropyl methanesulfonate is practically ineffective, even though doses of these chemicals produced comparable levels of dominant-lethal mutations. These differences between ethyl methanesulfonate and triethylenemelamine on one hand and isopropyl methanesulfonate on the other were hypothesized to be a function of the types of chromosomal lesions present at the time of repair activity and whether or not chromosomal aberrations were already fixed at the time of postfertilization pronuclear DNA synthesis.