CHROMOSOMAL DNA SYNTHESIS IN DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER

Analysis of labeling patterns in three chromosome segments of Drosophila melanogaster has shown that the replicative activity within chromosomes is temporally ordered. Moreover, specific labeling patterns on one chromosome occur with specific patterns on another chromosome with a very high degree of correlation. This circumstance leads to the conclusion that DNA synthesis among all the regions in the three chromosome segments studied is coordinated. The various labeling patterns observed in any one chromosome and the combinations of labeling patterns observed in all three chromosome segments can be arranged in ordered arrays, if one assumes that the DNA synthesis in each chromosome region will go to completion without stopping once it has started. Such arrays can serve as models for the temporal order of DNA synthesis among chromosome regions. They predict that in any one chromosome DNA replication begins and ends at very few loci and that synthesis at a larger number of points occurs at an intermediate time.