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Published June 2003 | public
Journal Article

C. B. Bridges' repeat hypothesis and the nature of the gene

Lewis, E. B.

Abstract

IN producing the definitive maps of the giant salivary gland chromosomes of Drosophila melanogaster, C. B. Bridges (1935) interpreted certain structures as tandem gene duplications that had become established in the species. He wrote: In my first report on duplications at the 1918 meeting of the A.A.A.S., I emphasized the point that the main interest in duplications lay in their offering a method for evolutionary increase in lengths of chromosomes with identical genes which could subsequently mutate separately and diversify their effects. The present demonstration that certain sections of normal chromosomes have actually been built up in blocks through such "repeats" goes far toward explaining species initiation (p. 64). I will call this Bridges' repeat hypothesis, and in this article I show how Bridges had hoped to test it. Although he was unsuccessful, it led others to discover (1) recombination within the gene and (2) the existence of gene complexes, or clusters of closely linked and functionally related genes.

Additional Information

© 2003 by the Genetics Society of America. I thank Welcome Bender, Giuseppe Bertani, Allan Campbell, Andrew Dowsett, Robert Drewell, Ian Duncan, Willard Hollander, Norman Horowitz, Howard Lipshitz, Geoffrey Montgomery, David Perkins, and Allan Spradling for help in the preparation of this Perspectives.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 20, 2023