Search

Using a computer search in the mapped human genome, we could show that interstitial telomere-related sequences are clustered in R-bands, and, in some cases, coexist with mapped fragile sites. We speculate that this association could predispose to chromosome fragility and recombination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work reports an investigation on the possible relationships between some features of human chromosome bands and the frequency of constitutional chromosome breakage. The statistical analysis was performed on 10,492 congenital breakpoints available in published cytogenetic literature. The factors examined were the length of the band, the presence of fragile sites, the response at GTG banding, the chromatin flavor and the involvement in evolutionary events. Our results confirmed that the frequency of breakage of a specific band is related to both its length and its response to G-band staining, whereas the presence of rare or common fragile sites showed little or no influence. Chromatin flavor appeared to be an important factor determining the probability of breakage, taking into account the great fraction of the total variance of the data. Moreover, our analysis showed that the length-dependence of the breakage probability can be considered as the sum of two components, one constant for every band, the other one proportional to band length. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]