clifford (B.4.1) , an allele of CG1603 , causes tissue overgrowth in the Drosophila melanogaster eye

Mutant B.4.1 , generated via EMS mutagenesis in Drosophila melanogaster , was studied by undergraduate students participating in the Fly-CURE. After inducing genetically mosaic tissue in the adult eye, B.4.1 mutant tissue displays a robust increase in cell division and a rough appearance. Complementation mapping and sequence analysis identified a nonsense mutation in the gene CG1603 , which we named clifford ( cliff ) due to observed increases in red-pigmented mutant tissue compared to controls. cliff encodes a zinc finger-containing protein implicated in transcriptional control. RNAi knockdown of cliff similarly results in rough eyes, confirming a role for Cliff in eye development.