Immunostaining of Formaldehyde-fixed Metaphase Chromosome from Untreated and Aphidicolin-treated DT40 Cells

During mitosis chromosomes are condensed into dense X-shaped structures that allow for microscopic determination of karyotype as well as inspection of chromosome morphology. This protocol describes a method to perform immunostaining of formaldehyde-fixed metaphase chromosomes from the avian cell line DT40. It was developed to characterize the localization of YFP-tagged TopBP1 on mitotic chromosomes and specifically determine the percentage of TopBP1 foci that formed on breaks/gaps as well as ends of individual metaphase macrochromosomes ( Pedersen et al., 2015 ). For this purpose immunostaining of YFP was applied. However, the protocol may be optimized for other cell lines or epitopes.