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Observations on the modification in size and shape of chromosomes due to technical procedure

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The modification in size and shape of chromosomes due to different technical procedures has been investigated on mammalian somatic chromosomes grown in tissue culture. Results show that (1) highly contracted chromosomes tend to have their centromeres more median than less contracted ones in different cells and (2) longer chromosomes tend to contract more strongly than shorter ones in the same cell by colchicine treatment. It was suggested that the process of chromatid condensation may not always be uniform in all chromosomes at a given stage of the mitotic cycle.

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Contribution No. 471 from the Zoological Institute, Faculty of Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan. Aided partly by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation for research in cytology and partly by a grant from the Damon Runyon Memorial Fund for Cancer Research to S. Makino (DRG-563).

The author wishes to express his cordial thanks to Professor Sajiro Makino for his kind direction and improvement of the manuscript. Further appreciations should be extended to Drs. C.M. Pomerat and J. Blumel, University of Texas, who revised the data of this paper.

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Sasaki, M. Observations on the modification in size and shape of chromosomes due to technical procedure. Chromosoma 11, 514–522 (1960). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00328672

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