Mutants are not hypersensitive to gamma irradiation, methyl methanesulfonate or nitrogen mustard compared to their heterozygous siblings.

The frequency of crossing over in mutant females is less than 10% of the wild-type frequency. However, noncrossover gene conversions are recovered almost twice as frequently in mutants than in wild type (assayed using an intragenic recombination assay at the ry locus). Conversion tract lengths generated by the mutant flies are shorter than those from wild-type flies, with a mean tract length of 250bp and 441bp respectively. Thus, the increased recovery of noncrossover gene conversions from the mutant females is due to an actual increase in the frequency of events, and not the result of longer conversion tracts. Mosaicism has not been detected in any of the noncrossover events from mutant flies.