Two well-known mutants of chiasma maintenance function in maize are allelic

By a series of traditional crosses, allelism has been tested for two maize recessive mutants of independent origin, dy1 and dsy1, both called desynaptic. These mutants both display loss of chiasmate association during diakinesis (late prophase I) but at differing frequencies. This chiasma loss happens before nucleolar loss and nuclear membrane system breakdown. That crossovers have occurred to establish the chiasmata in the first place has been documented by diakinesis-stage separation of heterozygous heterochromatic regions in univalents formed by bivalent-association breakdown. In the present work, the two mutants have been found to be allelic by the outcome of traditional crosses that produced variant plants which were heterozygous for the two alleles. These plants express a unique phenotype at diakinesis, but are essentially normal at pachytene, metaphase I, anaphase I, and later stages of meiosis.Key words: chiasma, crossover, complementation.