Polytene chromosomes normal.
Tritiated uridine incorporation in third instar salivary gland chromosomes suggests X chromosome transcriptional activity is reduced in her/her larvae compared with heterozygous siblings.
her1/her2 females develop as sterile intersexes at 25oC or 29oC and are normal and fertile at 18oC. Daughters of her1/her2 and her1/hermat-1 mothers are severely affected by the presence of a sisA point mutation and Sxlf9, viability can be restored by the presence of SxlM1. The presence of SxlfLS does not affect the daughters.
Homozygous females are transformed to intersexes under restrictive and semi-restrictive temperatures (29oC and 25oC). Mutant males show a weak transformation to intersexuality in the sixth sternite has bristles. Surviving daughters of homozygotes and transheterozygotes raised at semi-restrictive temperatures show a high frequency of morphological defects not seen in sons. Maternal effect female lethality is enhanced by Sxlf1. Severely restrictive conditions (29oC for more than 2 days) reveals maternal sex-nonspecific lethality for all heteroallelic combinations except her3/her2 : embryos show defect in gastrulation and differentiation of the cuticles.
Original allele was recovered as a recessive temperature-sensitive lethal with low homozygous viability (3-7% of the viability her/+) at 29oC and near-normal viability at 18oC in both sexes. Surviving 29oC homozygotes have small bodies, rough eyes, incised wings and etched abdominal tergites. XX homozygotes surviving at 29oC are intersexual, with partially formed sexcombs, male-colored abdominal patches and rudimentary male and female external genitalia. XY escapers have female-like sixth abdominal sternite bristles, but otherwise appear sexually normal. her/her flies of both sexes raised at 18oC are morphologically normal and fertile; however, XX homozygotes exhibit reversible temperature-dependent sterility when mated at 29oC. Homozygous females exert a mild maternal effect upon the sexual phenotype of her/+ offspring which develop at 29oC; females show abnormal basitarsal bristle arrangement and patches of male abdominal pigmentation; males show female basitarsal bristles among sexcomb teeth and the presence of sixth sternite bristles.
dsx1, her1 has abnormal sex-determination | recessive phenotype
XX ; her1/+ ; dsx1/dsx1 and XX ; her1/her1; dsx1/+ flies have an average of 12.4 and 10.5 vaginal teeth respectively, indicating the intersexuality of these flies. XX ; her1/her1 ; dsx1/dsx1 flies have an average of 2.7 vaginal teeth. XY ; her1/+ ; dsx1/dsx1 and XX ; her1/her1; dsx1/+ flies have an average of 12.2 vaginal teeth. XY ; her1/her1 ; dsx1/dsx1 flies have an average of 3.8 vaginal teeth. 5% of XX ; her1/her1; dsx1/dsx1 flies have fused intersexual dorsal-lateral anal plates. 80% of XX ; her1/+ ; dsx1/dsx1 and 30% of XX ; her1/her1; dsx1/+ flies have fused intersexual dorsal-lateral anal plates.
Heat induced expression of herhs.PL fully rescues all male and female mutant phenotypes.
Relative severity of the effects on female and male sexual differentiation is her3 > her1 > her2 > hermat-1. Relative severity of the effects on viability is her3 > her1 = her2 > hermat-1.