Summary
A method is described for the analysis of chromosomes in prophase and early metaphase. It involves culturing the lymphocytes in medium RPMI-1640, supplemented with 10% autologous plasma instead of fetal bovine serum. Living cells are treated with actinomycin D and colcemid for 1 h prior to harvest and harvested early at 65 h of incubation, using a hypotonic solution formulated by Ohnuki (1968). The method has been tested on several hundred clinical samples on a routine basis. On average, 30% of the dividing cells were in prometaphase.
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Rybak, J., Tharapel, A., Robinett, S. et al. A simple reproducible method for prometaphase chromosome analysis. Hum Genet 60, 328–333 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00569213
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00569213