Advances in plant chromosome identification and cytogenetic techniques

Recent developments that improve our ability to distinguish slightly diverged genomes from each other, as well as to distinguish each of the nonhomologous chromosomes within a genome, add a new dimension to the study of plant genomics. Differences in repetitive sequences among different species have been used to develop multicolor fluorescent in situ hybridization techniques that can define the components of allopolyploids in detail and reveal introgression between species. Bacterial artificial chromosome probes and repetitive sequence arrays have been used to distinguish each of the nonhomologous somatic chromosomes within a species. Such karyotype analysis opens new avenues for the study of chromosomal variation and behavior, as well as for the localization of individual genes and transgenes to genomic position.