plasma membrane & spermatozoon
After fertilization of control eggs, the snky1 male pronucleus fails to decondense (i.e. maintains a needle-shape) and does not keep a sperm aster in its vicinity.
Membrane markers in sperm show that snky1 mutant sperm fail in plasma membrane breakdown during fertilization.
Homozygotes and hemizygotes have normal viability and morphology. Homozygous females are fertile. Eggs derived from wild-type females mated to homozygous males show very low hatch rates (0.40%). snky1/snky2 males produce motile sperm but are either completely sterile or occasionally produce only a few offspring. Homozygous males produce morphologically normal sperm. These sperm complete their entry into the egg, but fail to undergo chromatin decondensation which normally occurs within minutes after sperm entry. The female meiotic products appear indistinguishable from those typical of unfertilised wild-type eggs; they are located at the periphery of the egg and are often fused to form a single aggregated group of chromosomes. Most eggs do not contain a sperm aster. snky1 sperm do not show evidence of DNA replication in eggs laid by gnu305 females.
Arrest of sperm development just after sperm entry into the egg; motile sperm successfully enters the egg but after entry the sperm nucleus remains condensed and fails to migrate.
male-sterile
A. Spradling.
Separable from: P{ry11}96D.ry4. The male sterile phenotype of snky1 is associated with, but separable from, the P{ry11}96D.ry4 insertion.
