SPONTANEOUS MUTATION IN MAIZE
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Excerpt
The gene, we are accustomed to say, is the material unit of heredity; its mutations are the sole source of new germ plasm and thus the raw material of organic evolution.
The nature of the gene may be investigated only through the study of gene mutations. For our knowledge of a gene can come only from the study of its effects, and the effects of the single gene may be distinguished from those of other genes only when a mutation has provided a genotype altered at this one locus only, for comparison.
But in the experimental study of gene mutation, we are met repeatedly by anomalies and contradictions. Among the mutations observed, some are associated with gross rearrangements and losses; no doubt there are others with minute rearrangements and losses beyond our range of detection. Individuals of mutant type may also occur without chromosomal aberration, from the deficiencies and duplications...
Footnotes
- 1
↵1 Cooperative investigations of the Division of Cereal Crops and Diseases, Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils, and Agricultural Engineering, U. S. Department of Agriculture, and Department of Field Crops, University of Missouri, Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station Journal Series No. 1267.
- 2
↵2 The work reported was aided by a grant from the American Cancer Society, through the Committee on Growth of the National Research Council.
