Mutational analyses of fs(1)Ya, an essential, developmentally regulated, nuclear envelope protein in Drosophila

The fs(1)Ya protein (YA) is an essential, maternally encoded, nuclear lamina protein that is under both developmental and cell cycle control. A strong Ya mutation results in early arrest of embryos. To define the function of YA in the nuclear envelope during early embryonic development, we characterized the phenotypes of four Ya mutant alleles and determined their molecular lesions. Ya mutant embryos arrest with abnormal nuclear envelopes prior to the first mitotic division; a proportion of embryos from two leaky Ya mutants proceed beyond this but arrest after several abnormal divisions. Ya unfertilized eggs contain nuclei of different sizes and condensation states, apparently due to abnormal fusion of the meiotic products immediately after meiosis. Lamin is localized at the periphery of the uncondensed nuclei in these eggs. These results suggest that YA function is required during and after egg maturation to facilitate proper chromatin condensation, rather than to allow a lamin-containing nuclear envelope to form. Two leaky Ya alleles that partially complement have lesions at opposite ends of the YA protein, suggesting that the N- and C-termini are important for YA function and that YA might interact with itself either directly or indirectly.