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Scientific article
Letter
English

Similar level of polyteny in bands and interbands of Drosophila giant chromosomes

Contributors

Spierer-Royer, Anne; Spierer, Pierre

Published in

Nature, vol. 307, no. 5947, p. 176-178

Publication date

1984

Abstract

The giant polytene chromosomes of Drosophila melanogaster have long been of interest to the geneticist because of the visible map of the genome provided by their characteristic banding patterns. An issue in the understanding of the molecular basis of chromosome banding has been whether the chromosomal DNA is replicated to the same extent in bands and interbands. Although various suggestions have been put forward the point has remained controversial. We have isolated 315 kilobases (kb) of contiguous Drosophila genomic DNA which spans an interval of approximately 13 bands and interbands of the polytene chromosomes. We report here the measurement of the relative level of DNA replication in polytene chromosomes of 84 adjacent restriction fragments of our cloned DNA. We conclude that there are no significant differences in the level of polyteny within the large band and between bands and interbands of this region. This result supports the 'folded fibre' model of polytene chromosome organization, rather than models involving disproportionate replication along the banding pattern.

Keywords

  • Animals
  • Chromatin/ultrastructure
  • Chromosome Banding
  • Chromosome Mapping
  • Chromosomes/ultrastructure
  • DNA Replication
  • Drosophila melanogaster/genetics/ultrastructure

UNIGE affiliation entities

Funding

  • Swiss National Science Foundation - 3.079.81

Citation (ISO format)

SPIERER-ROYER, Anne, SPIERER, Pierre. Similar level of polyteny in bands and interbands of Drosophila giant chromosomes. In: Nature, 1984, vol. 307, n° 5947, p. 176–178. doi: 10.1038/307176a0

Main files (1)

Article (Published version)

Identifiers

Journal ISSN

0028-0836
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Technical informations

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27/07/2010 16:19:00

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