The behavior of allocyclic chromosomes in Bloom's syndrome

The behavior of individual allocyclic chromosomes has been analyzed in lymphocytes of a sister and a brother with Bloom's syndrome. Of 4,633 46 diploid cells, 115 showed allocyclic chromosomes, and 74 of these had 44, 45 or 46 normal metaphase chromosomes accompanied by one or two allocyclic chromosomes. Of 56 tetraploid cells, 9 contained such chromosomes. The allocyclic chromosomes appeared "pulverized" or extended corresponding to S or G2 PCC. We have proposed the hypothesis that individual allocyclic chromosomes do not, as a rule, come from micronuclei, as has often been assumed, but have been left behind in their cycle. This would be caused by a mutation or deletion of a hypothetical coiling center situated near the centromere of each chromosome arm. The following observations agree with our explanation but less well or not at all with the idea of micronuclei: (1) In only 9.6% of the cells does the allocyclic chromosome lie at the edge of the metaphase plate. (2) In 24 cells a part of a chromosome is "pulverized" while the rest is in metaphase. (3) Both a "pulverized" and an extended chromosome were present in the same cell. (4) A "pulverized" acrocentric is often nose-to-nose with a normal D or G chromosome. (5) No allocyclic chromosomes corresponding to G1 PCC have been found in our material. (6) When a ring is replaced by an allocyclic chromosome, it is usually a member of a 46-chromosome complement. Furthermore, the occurrence of allocyclic chromosomes is correlated with that of other chromosome anomalies which do not follow a Poisson distribution. Allocyclic chromosomes are also more frequent (16%) in tetraploid than in diploid cells (2%).