Slide Processing for the Examination of Male Mammalian Meiotic Chromosomes

A rapid method was devised specifically for the cytological identification of translocations in the male mouse at late prophase to metaphase of meiotic division I, but the method should be useful for less specific objectives requiring examination of mammalian testicular material. For the adult mouse, masses of tubules from a single testis, freed of the testicular tunic, are placed in 3 ml of 0.7% sodium citrate for 15-20 min, and subsequently fixed in 50% acetic acid by the addition of 3 ml of glacial acetic acid to the hypotonic citrate. To facilitate handling of individual tubules by preserving their visible structure, the addition of fixative is at a rate which is grossly adjusted so that 2 ml will have been added at the end of 30 sec and the remaining 1 ml by the end of a minute. A single fixed tubule 1-2 cm long is placed lengthwise on a slide and covered with a drop of lactic-acetic orcein made as follows: Add 2 gm of synthetic orcein (G. T. Gurr) to a mixture of 50.0 ml of glacial acetic acid, 42.5 ml of 85% lactic acid, and 7.5 ml of distilled water. After staining for 10 min, a 22 × 50 mm cover slip is placed over the tubule, and it is allowed to stain for an additional 10 min. The majority of germinal cells will not be in late prophase or metaphase of the first meiotic division, therefore many preparations will be useless; however, slides with division figures are radidly selected as follows: Before squashing, examine under a microscope at a magnification of 150, and upon recognition of a single meiotic division, remove the slide and squash the preparation for subsequent detailed examination. As a consequence of the spermatogenic wave that progresses along the length of a tubule, a given slide will usually have many division figures or none at all, hence the limitation of 1 tubule per slide facilitates efficient discarding. Preliminary work with the Chinese hamster suggests that good preparations might be obtained from testes of various mammals when the volume of hypotonic solution is adjusted so as to compensate for varying testicular sizes by maintaining a 15:1 ratio of fluid to estimated volume of tissue.