title: Painting the chromosomes of Brachypodium: current status and future prospects.
abstract: Chromosome painting is one of the most powerful and spectacular tools of modern molecular cytogenetics, enabling complex analyses of nuclear genome structure and evolution. For many years, this technique was restricted to the study of mammalian chromosomes, as it failed to work in plant genomes due mainly to the presence of large amounts of repetitive DNA common to all the chromosomes of the complement. The availability of ordered, chromosome-specific BAC clones of Arabidopsis thaliana containing relatively little repetitive genomic DNA enabled the first chromosome painting in dicotyledonous plants. Here, we show for the first time chromosome painting in three different cytotypes of a monocotyledonous plant-the model grass, Brachypodium distachyon. Possible directions of further detailed studies are proposed, such as the evolution of grass karyotypes, the behaviour of meiotic chromosomes, and the analysis of chromosome distribution at interphase.
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Anatomy and Cytology, University of Silesia, Jagiellonska, Katowice, Poland. didziak@us.edu.pl
authors.forename: Dominika
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Idziak
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Betekhtin
authors.forename: Elzbieta
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Wolny
authors.forename: Karolina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lesniewska
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.forename: Melanie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Febrer
authors.forename: Michael W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Bevan
authors.forename: Glyn
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Jenkins
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hasterok
mesh_terms: D058431:Brachypodium / Q000235:genetics*; D020223:Chromosome Painting / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D032461:Chromosomes, Plant / Q000235:genetics*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D018745:Genome, Plant; D059785:Karyotype