Reciprocal chromosome painting reveals detailed regions of conserved synteny between the karyotypes of the domestic dog (Canis familiaris) and human

The domestic dog is increasingly being recognized as a useful model for hum an disease. The aim of this study was to conduct the first detailed whole-g enome comparison of human and dog using bidirectional heterologous chromoso me painting (reciprocal Zoo-FISH) analysis. We used whole-chromosome paint probes produced from degenerate oligonucleotide-primed PCR amplification of high-resolution bivariate how-sorted human and dog chromosomes. No fewer t han 68 evolutionarily conserved segments were identified between the dog an d the human karyotypes. The use of elongated metaphase chromosomes for both species allowed the boundaries of each evolutionarily conserved segment to be determined to subband resolution. The distribution of conserved segment s is discussed, as are the applications of these data in refining the curre nt status of the dog genome map. (C) 1999 Academic Press.