Comparative painting of mammalian chromosomes

Comparative chromosome painting has shown that synteny has been conserved for large segments of the genome in various placental mammals. Advances such as spectral karyotyping and multicolour ‘bar coding’ lend speed and precision to comparative molecular cytogenetics. Reciprocal chromosome painting and hybridisations with probes such as yeast artificial chromosomes, cosmids, and fibre fluorescence in situ hybridisation allow subchromosomal assignments of chromosome regions and can identify breakpoints of rearranged chromosomes. Advances in molecular cytogenetics can now be used to test the hypothesis that chromosome rearrangement breakpoints in human pathology and in evolution are correlated.