The length of silver-stained human autosomal pachytene chromosomes

The length of 44 silver-stained human autosomal pachytene complements was shown to vary from about 300 micrometer to at least 535 micrometer. The lengths of the individual 22 autosomal chromosomes of eight complements representing this interval was measured and the relative lengths calculated. For most of the chromosomes a 1:1 relationship was found between the relative length and the corresponding relative DNA content (Mendelsohn et al. 1973). For some of the chromosomes this ratio seemed to deviate systematically from the 1:1 ratio. The data indicate a different organization of certain stages of the meiotic and the mitotic chromosome (Bak et al. 1979).