The length of silver-stained human autosomal pachytene chromosomes

Summary The length of 44 silver-stained human autosomal pachytene complements was shown to vary from about 300 m to at least 535 . The lengths of the individual 22 autosomal chromosomes of eight complements representing this interval was measured and the relative lengths calculated. For most of the chromosomes a 1:1 relationship was found between the relative length and the corresponding relative DNA content (Mendelsohn et al. 1973). For some of the chromosomes this ratio seemed to deviate systematically from the 1:1 ratio. The data indicate a different organization of certain stages of the meiotic and the mitotic chromosomes (Bak et al. 1979).