Congenital chromosome breakage clusters within Giemsa-light bands and identifies sites of chromatin instability.
Analysis of the distribution of published chromosome breaks in cells with constitutional chromosome aberrations showed a nonrandom distribution of breaks among chromosomes and chromosome regions. A significant amount of breakage occurred at Giemsa-negative bands. In addition, chromosome sites associated with a number of fragile sites and cellular oncogene sites were affected nonrandomly. The data are consistent with the hypothesis that chromosome breakage occurs in somatic or germ cells as a result of recombinational errors involving actively transcribing chromatin regions or regions of unstable DNA sequence structure placed in proximity during interphase.
Koduru
P
P
Laboratory of Cancer Genetics and Cytogenetics, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY.
Chaganti
R
R
D001399:Azure Stains; D002843:Chromatin / Q000235:genetics*; D002869:Chromosome Aberrations; D002871:Chromosome Banding; D043283:Chromosome Fragile Sites; D002873:Chromosome Fragility; D005819:Genetic Markers; D006801:Humans; D007621:Karyotyping; D011519:Proto-Oncogenes
D001399:Azure Stains; D002843:Chromatin; D005819:Genetic Markers