Maternal and zygotic Ced-12c06760 mutants express some wild type transcript as well as two larger products. Aberrant splicing of the primary transcript occurs between exons 1 and 2, and introduces a stop codon 8 amino acids downstream from the end of exon 1.
Detached muscle fibres are present in stage 16-17 embryos derived from Ced-12c06760 germ line clones.
In embryos maternally and zygotically mutant for Ced-12c06760, significant axonal patterning defects are observed, including: an increased number of outer fascicle gaps, aberrant midline crossing of longitudinal axons, and misrouting of outer longitudinal axons.
Homozygous embryos have minor defects in myoblast fusion: a small number of myoblasts remain unfused and muscles are occasionally missing.
Ced-12c06760/Df(2L)HO55 embryos exhibit modest myoblast fusion defects: the overall muscle pattern is unperturbed, but some unfused myoblasts are present just under the muscle layer.
Germline clone embryos maternally mutant for Ced-12c06760 and zygotically heterozygous for Df(2L)Prl (that removes Ced-12) exhibit a greater number of missing muscles and unfused myoblasts compared to zygotic Ced-12c06760 trans-heterozygotes. The earlier specification of developing muscle cells, founder cells and fusion-competent cells appears to occur normally in these embryos.
Ced-12c06760 is rescued by Scer\GAL4Act.PU/Ced-12UAS.cGa
Expression of Ced-12Scer\UAS.cGa under the control of Scer\GAL4Act.PU reverts the lethality of Ced-12c06760.
Lethality is reverted by excision of PBac{PB}Ced-12c06760.