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Updated: Aug 10, 2026
06:37
Preparation of Drosophila Polytene Chromosome Squashes for Antibody Labeling
Published on: February 9, 2010
Characteristic folding pattern of polytene chromosomes in Drosophila salivary gland nuclei
Nature
|March 4, 1984
Abstract:
A computer-based system for recording and analysing light microscope images, combined with classical cytogenetic analysis, has revealed the spatial organization of the giant chromosomes of Drosophila salivary gland cells. Each polytene chromosome arm folds up in a characteristic way, contacts the nuclear surface at specific sites and is topologically isolated from all other arms.
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02:32Position-effect Variegation
In 1928, a German botanist Emil Heitz observed the moss nuclei with a DNA binding dye. He observed that while some chromatin regions decondense and spread out in the interphase nucleus, others do not. He termed them euchromatin and heterochromatin, respectively. He proposed that the heterochromatin regions reflect a functionally inactive state of the genome. It was later confirmed that heterochromatin is transcriptionally repressed, and euchromatin is transcriptionally active chromatin.
02:04Polytene Chromosomes
Polytene chromosomes are giant interphase chromosomes with several DNA strands placed side by side. They were discovered in the year 1881 by Balbiani in salivary glands, intestine, muscles, malpighian tubules, and hypoderm of larvae Chironomus plumosus. Hence, these are also called "Salivary gland chromosomes." These are found in insects of the order Diptera and Collembola; in certain organs of mammals; and synergids, antipodes of flowering plants. Polytene chromosomes are also regularly...