A new assay to asses aneuploidy in human-hamster embryos

Fluorescent in situ hybridization using three chromosome-specific centromeric human DNA probes was used to analyze the aneuploidy frequency in human-hamster two-cell embryos. With these techniques first mitotic division errors due to the effects of physical or chemical agents on human spermatozoa, such as non-disjunction and anaphase lag, can be easily detected. In control samples the estimated frequency of non-disjunction and anaphase lag was 3.4%. This assay can also detect premeiotic or meiotic errors. We estimated the same frequency (3.4%) for disomy, whereas monosomy was not found.