A COMPARISON OF THE YIELDS OF TRANSLOCATIONS AND DICENTRICS MEASURED USING FLUORESCENCE IN-SITU HYBRIDIZATION

Chromosome aberration analysis using fluorescence in situ hybridizatio n (FISH) methods without centromere-specific markers results in the mi sscoring of a substantial fraction of the dicentrics as translocations ; that is, too many translocations and too few dicentrics are scored. Such misscoring has led to considerable confusion in the rapidly emerg ing literature on FISH-based cytogenetics. Here, we demonstrate that t he problem is fully resolved when centromeric probes are used.