SUITABILITY OF HUMAN CHROMOSOME-SPECIFIC DNA LIBRARIES FOR MUTAGENICITY STUDIES IN MACACA-FASCICULARIS

The development and use of chromosome-specific DNA probes to label ent ire human chromosomes has been an important advance in molecular cytog enetics. Fluorescence in situ hybridization using whole chromosome-spe cific DNA probes has been used to study both numerical and structural chromosomal aberrations in many human cell types. It would be useful i f this technology could be applied to other animal species. However, w hole chromosome-specific DNA probes have been reported for only human chromosomes. In this study, experiments were conducted to determine wh ether human probes could be used to label chromosomes of the cynomolgu s monkey, Macaca fascicularis. The results demonstrate that some human DNA probes are suitable for the study of chromosomal aberrations in t he monkey. Monkey chromosomes 1 and 4 labelled with human DNA probes h ad a strong, chromosome-specific labelling pattern. The probe for huma n chromosome 21 labelled the short arm on the monkey chromosome 2 and the probe for human chromosome 2 could not be detected on any of the m onkey chromosomes.