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Updated: Mar 25, 2026
Simple Method for Fluorescence DNA In Situ Hybridization to Squashed Chromosomes
Published on: January 6, 2015
Application of multicolor banding combined with heterochromatic and locus-specific probes identify evolutionary
Wiwat Sangpakdee1, Alongklod Tanomtong2, Xiaobo Fan3
1Jena University Hospital, Friedrich Schiller University, Institute of Human Genetics, Kollegiengasse 10, D-07743 Jena, Germany ; Department of Biology Faculty of Science, Khon Kaen University, 123 Moo 16 Mittapap Rd., Muang District, Khon Kaen, 40002 Thailand.
Background:
The question what makes Homo sapiens sapiens (HSA) special among other species is one of the basic questions of mankind. A small contribution to answer this question is to study the chromosomal constitution of HSA compared to other, closely related species. In order to check the types and extent of evolutionary conserved breakpoints we studied here for the first time the chromosomes of Hylobates pileatus (HPI) compared to HSA and Hylobates lar (HLA) by means of molecular cytogenetics.
Results:
Overall, 68 new evolutionary conserved breakpoints compared to HSA could be characterized in this study. Interestingly, only seven of those were different compared to HLA. However, application of heterochromatic human DNA-probes provided evidence that observed high chromosomal rearrangement rates of gibbons in HPI happened rather in these repetitive elements than in euchromatin, even though most centromeric positions were preserved in HPI compared to HSA.
Conclusion:
Understanding genomes of other species and comparing them to HSA needs full karyotypic and high resolution genomic data to approach both: euchromatic and heterochromatic regions of the studied chromosome-content. This study provides full karyotypic data and previously not available data on heterochromatin-syntenies of HPI and HSA.
